Why I Live at the P.O.

In the opening paragraph, Sister establishes that she had a relationship with Mr. Whitaker first and that they parted ways because Stella-Rondo told Mr. Whitaker Sister was “one-sided,” referring to one of her breasts being larger than the other. While Sister takes issue with the literal truth of the statement, declaring, “I’m the same” (43), her narration illustrates the symbolic meaning of the term “one-sided.” The reader is only presented with the narrator’s side of the story as character after character turns against her, leaving her to be the hero in her own mind and villainized by others. At the beginning of the story, Sister claims that all the characters got along fine until Stella-Rondo came back, and throughout the story, Stella-Rondo receives blame for all the “problems” in the story. Furthermore, some interactions between characters suggest that there is dialogue Sister is not sharing. “One-sided” thus contributes to the theme of Truth and Perception in “Why I Live at the P.O.”

The post office is a motif mentioned throughout the text and supports the theme of Independence Versus Lack of Autonomy. Sister sees the post office as a source of independence and power, though the