Why I Live at the P.O.

The younger sister of Sister by exactly one year, Stella-Rondo is established as the story’s main antagonist, from the main character’s perspective. Stella-Rondo’s arrival at the family home with a child in tow after separating from her husband is the story’s inciting incident.

As the story unfolds, Stella-Rondo does not receive many physical descriptors, save for a scene in which she plucks her eyebrows with Kress tweezers. Stella-Rondo’s clothing also plays a role, with Uncle Rondo appearing in the flesh-colored kimono in which Stella-Rondo’s photographer husband had taken “boudoir” pictures of her.

Sister describes Stella-Rondo as “always ha[ving] anything in the world she wanted and then she’d throw it away” (43), illustrating Sister’s jealousy toward Stella-Rondo. As an example, Sister shares that she was given a pearl necklace by Papa-Daddy and threw it away a year later. Furthermore, Sister still has hard feelings over the fact that she dated Mr. Whitaker first, and she blames Stella-Rondo’s words for breaking them up.

Stella-Rondo is also a flat and static character who doesn’t change or grow during the story. Stella-Rondo brings a sense of mystery to the story, as she appears with a two-year-old child whom she repeatedly claims she adopted. Sister has her doubts, although Mama insists that she believes Stella-Rondo’s claims. In an era in which the sexuality of women was judged harshly via standards of propriety and decency, Shirley-T.’s presence and origins make the family uncomfortable.

The defining characteristic of the narrator’s maternal grandfather, Papa-Daddy, is his beard, which also becomes a source of conflict in the story. Papa-Daddy is described as sulking and “about a million years old” (44). The main character also describes him as “real rich,” though Mama’s disagreement and the fact that the family needs to “stretch” the meat to feed everyone suggests that Sister is again employing hyperbole.

Papa-Daddy’s descriptions and mannerisms imply that he plays a traditional patriarchal role in the multigenerational household and holds sway over the entire family. When Stella-Rondo tells Papa-Daddy that Sister doesn’t “understand” why he doesn’t remove his beard, Papa “l-a-y-s down” his silverware. The slow deliberateness of the action implies that Papa-Daddy is in charge, and though Sister and Stella-Rondo are both adults, the scene is suggestive of a child about to be reprimanded by an elder, which in fact Sister is. Papa-Daddy is influential among the rest of the family as well, as he tells Uncle Rondo stories that pit the two sisters against each other. In the narrator’s mind, this provides more evidence that Papa-Daddy plays favorites, as she overhears this conversation trying to “turn Uncle Rondo against me” (45). Papa-Daddy doesn’t mind flexing his power, as when he tells Sister that the postmistress job was a result of his influence with the government.

The last page implies that he holds sway with the entire (small) town, as some people refuse to “buy stamps” because they are worried about currying Papa-Daddy’s favor after Sister ends up living at the post office after the family feud.

The first of Mama’s actions mentioned in the story include her shock at Stella-Rondo bringing a child home. The narrator describes Mama as duplicitous in her actions, saying one thing and meaning another. For instance, when Mama tells Stella-Rondo she is “ashamed” of her, Sister’s aside informs the reader, “but of course she wasn’t” (43). Mama at times seems to diffuse family conflicts, though occasionally she further agitates them, illustrating Sibling Rivalry as a Family Affair.

Furthermore, Mama illustrates the racism inherent in the story’s setting in the Jim Crow South as she uses a racist slur to describe giving her Black workers the holiday off because “no earthly power could hold one anyway on the Fourth of July” (46). Mama feels noble for giving the hired help the day off on a day dedicated to American freedom, when in fact Black Americans in the South had little freedom during this time.

Mama also illustrates the gender inequality of the 1940s. When Mama tells Sister that if she had married and moved away, Mama would have been “just as overjoyed” to see her return (47), she implies that marriage and moving away is preferable status to being single and working at the post office in a time when women had limited options.

Mama is at times depicted as supportive, such as when she accepts that the child Stella-Rondo brings home is adopted. At the same time, she furthers the shame and taboos around women’s sexuality during this time. Sister compares Mama to Cousin Annie Flo, who “went to her grave denying the facts of life” (47). This statement results in Mama slapping Sister across the face.