Sister: An Untrustworthy Narrator

Eudora Welty wrote “Why I Live at the P.O.” entirely from the first-person perspective of Sister. Welty’s presentation of the story through Sister’s point of view presents the reader with a biased, untrustworthy narrator whose goal is to evoke sympathy from the reader. 

From the beginning of the story, Sister calls for sympathy by presenting herself as the less-favored child. However, her argument is flawed when she explains that Stella-Rondo is spoiled because she is “exactly twelve months” younger, which clearly shows no causation (pg 594). Sister presents Stella-Rondo as self-absorbed and dishonest; claiming that she was lying about her child being adopted; however, the other members of the family seem to have none of the same views, indicating that Sister’s viewpoint is unreliable. 

Sister acts as the victim in the story, even though she is the one harshly judging everyone, in another attempt to gain the sympathy of the reader. She believes everyone has turned against her, but we only see the family’s reactions through her distorted perspective. From the beginning she criticizes Stella-Rondo, first commenting on her hat, and then proceeds to criticize her child who she claimed was not adopted and had a learning disability, but turned out to be completely normal. When Papa-Daddy gets upset over Sister’s comment about his beard, Sister tells him, “I wouldn’t any more want you to cut off your beard than the man in the moon. It was the farthest thing from my mind!” (pg 596) She acted completely innocent even though just lines before she commented about how Papa-daddy is “about a million years old and gots this long-long beard.” Sister takes the innocent approach again when Uncle Rondo gets upset about wearing the kimono, claiming she actually thought Uncle Rondo looked good. In both the instance with Papa-daddy and with Uncle-Rondo, Sister diverts the blame to Stella-Rondo, and presents Stella-Rondo as the bully who turns everyone against her. Sister’s presentation of her own version of the truth results in a biased narration.

Sister finally decides that she must leave to go live at the P.O., a completely ridiculous solution to her family troubles, and her family seems to display no concern, and in fact, seem to find the situation amusing. The fact that the family does not take Sister seriously again shows the reader that she cannot be trusted. Sister calls for sympathy one last time as she dramatically takes all of her belongings and leaves without any good-byes. She makes her home at the post office where she even finds that some people have yet again, turned against her, giving one last demonstration of how she proves an unreliable narrator. Despite how much Sister wants nothing to do with the family, she still hopes that Stella-Rondo will come to the post office, begging for Sister’s understanding, even though she was the one harshly judging Stella-Rondo all along.  

Through Sisters’ biased perspective, the reader is called to sympathy several times, adding a humorous element to the piece. It is obvious that Sister is dramatic and exaggerative, yet still longs for some compassion, giving an ironic dimension to the story that softens the harsh criticism.