Why I Live At The P. O By Eudora Welty

Typically, siblings strive to make themselves better than the other siblings. Sisters often try to find any way to either arrange for the other sibling to get into trouble or sound like the innocent child. In the story Why I Live at the P.O. by Eudora Welty, Sister’s narration is inadequate. The sister, Sister, telling the story attempts to make herself sound like the innocent daughter. The narrator’s sister, Stella-Rondo, knows their father, Papa-Daddy, is going to be enraged if someone says something about his beard needing to be trimmed, so she tells him Sister does not like his beard and the situation turns critical. Because she criticizes her family, the narrator wants the reader to believe she is a genuine person living in an unfortunate home. The narrator cannot see past the jealousy and disbelief and works to make the story unbelievable. The narration of this story helped set up the theme of the story.

From the beginning of the story, the only thought the narrator had was to criticize her sister, Stella-Rondo, and her family.

Sister believes she has done nothing wrong, but because the readers only understand what she is telling the reader cannot determine who is telling the truth, Sister or Stella-Rondo. The narration of the story allows the reader to understand how manipulative sister is. By addressing the audience when talking about her uncle, Uncle Rondo, and his hat she is trying to communicate with the audience. By attempting to connect with the audience, she attempts to show sympathy for herself. Because we only read the narrator’s point of view, we have to make assumptions as to why she is so angry with her sister. The reader does not have convincing evidence as to who is telling the truth. Sister’s point of view only allows the reader to see one side,

hers.
Another problem Sister had in the story was jealous of Stella-Rondo. Stella-Rondo stole her companion and married him, Stella-Rondo moved out of the house and even adopted a child, Shirley-T. She hates seeing her sister succeeding because she is younger than her. Because this story is told in first person, the reader wonders if there were problems with Mr. Whitaker and Sister’s relationship. When Stella-Rondo
Sister allowed the reader to see her side of the story but did not enable the reader to understand the problems Sister had with herself. If the story would have been told from another character's perspective the theme, lying can become addictive, would not have been a theme.