In Eudora Welty's Why I Live At The P. O.

In Eudora Welty’s short story, “Why I Live at the P.O.,” the first person narrator is called “Sister.” The most evident narrator’s characteristic is stubbornness. The narrator wants everyone to accept her opinions and inputs as the absolute truth and seems inconsiderate toward others’ perspective. She starts the story by criticizing her sister’s actions, Stella-Rondo. For instance, in the first sentence the narrator places herself as a victim, when she says: “I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again” (1). From my perspective, the first few words “I was getting along fine,” raise questions: Was she always getting along fine? Why is it important to say that she is getting along fine? Or was she having trouble before, and now she is ‘getting along fine?’ These unanswered questions raise an uncertainty about the narrator, which affects credibility and reliability of the narrator.

Whitaker, before Stella-Rondo “broke us up” (1). Again, the narrator is the victim of Stella-Rondo’s sabotage for no apparent reason other than when she finishes the first paragraph stating that “[Stella-Rondo] is spoiled” (1). The first paragraph tells me that the narrator is immature, intolerance, inconsiderate, and emotional unstable because the narrator starts the story with a limited, biased, and negative perspective of Stella-Rondo. The absence of moral tolerance and the sound of frustration towards family are tip-offs of an unreliable narrator because of a biased point of