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 narrative highlights multiple ways through which Sister and her job are dependent on those around her. Not only are most of the post office customers her family members, but Papa-Daddy makes it clear that his influence in the small town is responsible for her getting the job, illustrating her lack of self-sufficiency in a patriarchal society. While the character’s prospects are limited because of her gender, working at the post office would have been a socially acceptable job for a woman in the 1940s.

Many of the items Sister brings to the post office aren’t hers, nor are they necessarily practical items for setting up a home. For instance, she claims a fern as her own because she watered it. She also brings her mother’s sewing machine, justified by saying that she paid the most toward the motor for it when the family gave it to Mama for Christmas. Lending further irony to Sister’s “independence,” she depends on the labor of a Black child she forces to haul these belongings up the hill nine times. This interaction illustrates one form of “power” Sister does have in the segregated South of the 1940s, standing in contrast to the child’s powerlessness.

Papa-Daddy’s beard is another representation of Independence Versus Lack of Autonomy in the story by highlighting his autonomy relative to that of the women in his family. His beard—also a representation of masculinity—becomes a source of conflict when Stella-Rondo tells Papa-Daddy that Sister wants him to cut it off. Papa-Daddy, positioned as an authority figure throughout the text, calls Sister a “hussy” and says he will “never cut off his beard as long as he lives” (45), informing the family that he has had this beard since he was 15.

While Papa-Daddy is as isolated in small-town Mississippi as the other characters, as a white male and the head of a family, Papa-Daddy would have more privilege in the World War II-era South than either the narrator or many of the secondary characters. His beard demonstrates his ability to choose in a society where freedom of choice, even in minor areas, was not offered to Black people or women. After the beard discussion, Papa-Daddy declares that he will go and lie in the hammock, illustrating the leisure he is free to enjoy as a man.