P.O."

P.O"

"why I live at the P.O." by Eudora Welty is about a young woman moving out of her parents' home to escape her family, especially her younger sister. She knows she has to face independence on her own and leaves her family to make the post office her new home.

The story opens with the narrator telling how well she is getting along with her "mama,Papa daddy, and uncle Rondo." The narrator then begins telling how Stella- Rondo stole her boyfriend, Mr Witaker, and married him. Later, Stella-Rondo comes home with a two-year old adopted little girl. When Stella-Rondo arrives home, she begins turning the entire family against her sister, the narrator. The narrator, tired of her younger sister, leaves the house and moves to the post office. She takes everything that belongs to her. electric fan, needlepoint pillow, radio, sewing machine motor, calendar, themometer, canned goods, wall vases, and even a fern growing outside the house that she feels is rightfully hers because she watered it. The family declares they will never go to the post office again. Finally, the sisteris left alone in the post office, safe in her knowledge of who in the town is for or against her. Protesting loudly for her independence and happiness, she works her revenge by shutting her family off from the outside world.

The monologue short story is somewhat of a comedy told with natural Southern idiom flow. Her desciptive words plant vivid scenes and sounds. From the "gorgeous Add-a-Pearl Necklace," to the flesh-colored kimono "all cut on the bias," Welty makes this story a satirical portait of a Mississippi family. "Why I live at the P.O.," tells the story of what jealousy will lead a person to do. I liked it very much because of Welty's use of descriptive words that capture a reader's mind until the end of the story. I also give this story two thumbs up.