Everyone wants a perfect family, but nothing is ever perfect. The family in "Why I Live at PO" is definitely far from perfect. When Stella-Rondo returns to her old home after leaving her husband and bringing with her her young child who, according to her, was adopted, many conflicts in the family increase. Stella-Rondo turns every family member living in the house against her sister, her older sister, and each family member betrays their sister by believing the lies Stella-Rondo tells them about their sister. Despite the turmoil and anguish, the sister is so overwhelmed by the never-ending conflict that she feels she must leave her home and live at the post office. In “Why I Live at PO,” Eudora Welty strongly implies that the function of the family can rapidly decline when family members refuse to do certain things they should and do certain things they should not, through her use of point of view, of the symbolism, of and the setting. Since the sister was affected more by some of the family's actions, Welty told this short story through the sister's point of view to show how the family's function was diminished through these actions. The sister was very shocked when her sister broke the bonds of sisterhood by stealing her boyfriend and marrying him. Secondly, the sister was affected by the favoritism shown by her family towards her younger sister. Since her sister was more favored than her, this made her become jealous of her sister. For example, the sister shows a lot of jealousy in the tone she uses when describing what Stella-Rondo did with the bracelet her grandfather gave her. Her sister's description was: “She always had whatever she wanted in the world and then threw it away. Dad-Dad gave her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when... middle of paper... scenario of her sister coming to the post office and begging for alms, and at the end of this unrealistic scenario, she states clearly that it will have nothing to do with his sister. In this way, he rules out reconciliation with his sister and gives up on having a relationship with his sister. It seems that the sister is bitter now. More importantly, when the sister says, "But here I am, and here I will stay" (49), Welty shows the grave need for all families to work to become a healthy, functional family, ending the tale with the sister alone and bitter at post Office. Humans need other humans to survive; without this, we perish. Works Cited Welty, Eudora. Literature "Why I live at PO": an introduction to fiction, poetry, theater and writing. Ed. XJ Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Pearson-Prentice, 2010. 40-49. Press.