Sister Rivalry the Short Story \"Why I

¶ … Sister Rivalry

The short story "Why I Live at the P.O." By Eudora Welty is a family drama structured as an explanation of the circumstances surrounding the main character's alienation from her family. Sister is the story's protagonist, though she is not an entirely reliable narrator as she is entrenched in bitterness about her family situation. Sister's life changes when her sister Stella-Rondo returns to town after a long absence and reignites their long-held rivalry. One by one, Sister's family members take Stella-Rondo's side in the argument. Thus the reader is left as Sister's sole confidante, as we are privy to her point-of-view and she calls upon us to empathize with her struggle. As such, the reader is torn in half: One side seeing Sister as a victim of her sister's manipulations and her family's abuse, and the other half seeing that Sister has created some of the circumstances of her ouster.

From the outset of the story, there are plenty of reasons given to the reader to sympathize with the narrator. Most importantly is the name of the character: "Sister." Though she is the older of the siblings, she is defined in the story only by her relationship to the antagonist. She is thus robbed of her own identity, and her station in the family is relegated to her status as sister of Stella-Rondo. Later in the story, Sister suffers maltreatment which seems wildly disproportionate to the misdeeds she has committed. The most compelling example is Uncle Rondo's behavior. He is first convinced by Stella-Rondo that Sister has maligned him when she says, "Sister has been devoting this solid afternoon to sneering out my bedroom window at the way you look" (Welty 101). Without questioning Stella-Rondo's lie, Uncle Rondo stews in anger until he takes his revenge, which is throwing a bundle of firecrackers into Sister's bedroom. The family appears to know that Sister is exceptionally sensitive, yet they side with Stella-Rondo regardless.

The reader's interpretation of the relationship between Sister and Stella-Rondo is complicated by the lies of Stella-Rondo and the excessive suspiciousness of Sister. Sister accuses Stella-Rondo's daughter Shirley-T. Of being dumb and plants a seed of doubt in her mother's mind, as her mother says of Shirley-T.'s father, "Joe Whitaker frequently drank like a fish…I believed to my soul he drank chemicals" (Welty 98). Later when she is proven wrong after Shirley-T. sings a song, Sister stubbornly refuses to apologize. It is clear that neither sister is giving the other a chance to prove herself worthy of the other.