Betrayal in Flowering Judas Judas Iscariot, the disciple, hanged himself from a tree after betraying Jesus and giving him a kiss. The tree in which he hung from is known as the “Judas Tree.” In the short story, “Flowering Judas,” written by Katherine Anne Porter, the title is related to this religious event of betrayal, murder, and denial in history. The two main characters in the story are Braggioni and Laura. Braggioni is a cruel, powerful leader of revolutionaries in and around Mexico City. Laura is a young 22-year-old woman from America, taking up residence in Mexico. The most known theme in this short story is betrayal. All of the characters in the piece are guilty of betrayal, but Laura seems to struggle most.
Laura is a young woman living in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. A beautiful, but reserved young woman, I feel as if she is somewhat cold. Her tasks include running messages for the revolution and taking drugs to political prisoners. This story is a catalogue of Laura’s thoughts during this time. She is being courted by Braggioni, a leader of the revolution, with a wife whom he is treated poorly by. Every evening he comes to Laura’s house to sing to her. Afraid of what he might do, Laura keeps it to herself that his actions and even his appearance irk her to her very core. The first paragraph of the story sets up the tension that is developed in the remainder of the story. It contrasts Laura’s dedication and Braggioni’s exploitation. It is important to note that Braggioni’s description is not an admirable one. He is described as, “cruel to everyone, with a kind of specialized insolence…it would require a cruelty and vanity greater than his own to lay a finger on the vast cureless wound of his self-esteem” (Porter, 486). Laura avoids Braggioni, staying away from home for as long as possible each day because she knows upon her return he will be waiting. This tension between the two ways of life is developed throughout “Flowering Judas,” and we gradually recognize Laura as a character who struggles with betrayal far more intricate than the revolutionary leader’s corruption. To begin, Laura betrays the students who she teaches. They are caring and enthusiastic about Laura and her teaching. They even write on the board, “We lov ar ticher” (Porter, 490). She has no feeling toward these actions. “Every day she teaches children who remain strangers to her” (Porter, 490). Her full attention, commitment, and passion are not poured into these kids that adore her so much. A teacher is supposed to love what they do and focus on the importance of their students, but Laura is simply uneager to participate. She makes less of herself and betrays her students. Next, is her betrayal of love. She rejects every man who tries to ravish her. She cannot love them back. Laura blocks anything that tries to get to her heart. She does not reject love from men, but love from all places. Although she is loved and desired by many men, she feels nothing for them in return. This is especially seen in her relationship with Braggioni. Every night he comes to sing to her and every night she allows it. While he repulses her deep down she, she allows the man to continue this charade. “She knows what Braggioni would offer her, and she must resist tenaciously without appearing to resist” (Porter, 486). Laura has no intention of telling Braggioni to leave. She is leading on a married man in a game where ultimately he loses. Not only is she betraying Braggioni by leading him to this false sense of hope, but betraying his wife. By doing this she furthers the separation of their marriage. In a sense, Laura can be seen as committing adultery just through false judgment. Laura also betrays her country. She acts as a spy delivering letters to those people who are in hiding. “She smuggles letters from headquarters to men hiding from firing squads in back streets in mildewed houses” (Porter, 489). She also takes cigarettes to the prisoners that she visits and sneaks in encrypted messages from those men outside who fear the prison and becoming one of its captives. Out of pity, she delivers drugs to the prisoners. These narcotics help them sleep, “Tonight will really be night for you” (Porter, 488). She is of no aid in the revolutionary movement. By helping the prisoners she is betraying the government. She tries to repent these instances by going to the church, “She slips now and again into some crumbling little church, kneels on the chilly stone, and says a Hail Mary” (Porter, 487). By doing this she betrays her religion by committing the sin repeatedly.
Her last offense is the betrayal of the one person, though incapable of love, she felt the most for. She betrays Eugenio by providing him with narcotics that lead to his death. He is an imprisoned revolutionary whom Laura visits often. Not only does she betray him, but also he betrays himself. Eugenio deliberately overdoses his own body and in turn is partly responsible for his suicide. Laura admits to Braggioni that she saw Eugenio falling into a stupor, and admits that she was the one who provided him with the tablets he had taken from the day before. Eugenio comes to Laura in a dream later in the story and says, “Then eat these flowers, poor prisoner,” and from a Judas tree he stripped the warm bleeding flowers, and held them to her lips (Porter, 494). It is a reference to the last supper where Jesus has his disciples eat the bread and drink the wine in memory of him and in acceptance of him being heir savior. Here Laura accepts and eats the bleeding leaves Eugenio gives to her. She is in fact finally coming to terms with playing a part in murdering Eugenio, just as Christians accept Jesus during Holly Communion. Laura is guilty of betraying Eugenio by contributing to his death.
Betrayal seems to be a major theme in Flowering Judas. Laura not only betrays her revolutionary idealism, but God and her religion when she symbolically eats the flesh of the traitor, Judas. The story ends abruptly with Laura crying “NO!” and there are still questions that remain. Is Laura changed? Will this bring about feelings in her that she has for so long suppressed? Laura rejects life throughout the piece, never taking part in feeling anything for any certain object or person. Like Ray B. West Jr, said, “she is, like Judas the betrayer; and her betrayal, like his, consisted in an inability to believe.”

Works Cited

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. Flowering Judas. The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. 8th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2012. 486-494. Print.