Flowering Judas, and Other Stories by Katherine Anne Porter

First published: 1930; rev. ed., 1935

Type of work: Short stories

Form and Content

Flowering Judas, and Other Stories, Katherine Anne Porter’s first collection of short stories, includes among its twelve pieces several of her most significant works. As in all of her fiction, most of the protagonists are women. Writing out of her own experiences and memories shaped by imagination, Porter creates characters who confront and attempt to cope with a chaotic world. Caught in a world without a center, torn between an old order and a new, they often find themselves paralyzed, hopelessly alone in a modern wasteland.

Half of the stories, including the initial one, “María Concepcíon” (1922), grew out of Porter’s experiences in Mexico. In “María Concepcíon,” the title character finds her life disordered when her husband, Juan, runs off to war and takes his young lover, María Rosa, with him. Soon weary of fighting, however, Juan returns with María Rosa to the village in time for her to give birth to a son. A few hours later, María Concepcíon kills María Rosa and, having earlier lost her own child two days after its birth, takes María Rosa’s child for her own. The villagers all know the truth, but they—especially Juan and Lupe, María Rosa’s godmother and also the medicine woman of the village—support María Concepcíon, who is thus left free to go home with her husband and child to a restored order. “María Concepcíon” is a rare example of a Porter story in which the old order prevails, but it does so in a primitive society and ironically only through murder.

More typically, the other Mexican stories—“The Martyr” (1923), “Virgin Violeta” (1924), “Flowering Judas” (1930), “Hacienda” (1932, rev. 1934), and “That Tree” (1934)—end in disillusionment and isolation, the protagonist’s feelings often mirroring directly or indirectly Porter’s growing disillusionment with the revolution in Mexico. Old values are rejected, but the protagonist finds nothing to replace them.

Unquestionably the best of Porter’s Mexican stories and, according to many critics, her masterpiece, “Flowering Judas” depicts a paralyzed female in a modern wasteland. Laura, a young American expatriate teaching in Mexico, envisions herself a revolutionist, a supporter of an ideal cause although her experiences invalidate her belief. As her contribution to the cause, she runs errands for Braggiono, a fat, corrupt revolutionary leader who seeks to seduce her. On one such errand, Laura delivers drugs to Eugenio in jail, and he commits suicide with an overdose. Subsequently, Laura’s dream, in which he calls her a murderer, forces her to acknowledge her betrayal of Eugenio. Even more significant, however, she understands that she has betrayed herself. She has said “no”—not only to Braggiono but to all love as well. Caring for no one, not even her students or the prisoners to whom she ministers, she has rejected all feeling, all emotion; in essence, she has rejected life. Paralyzed and lonely, Laura desperately needs faith, but she finds herself faithless. Neither the Catholic faith of her childhood nor the revolutionary cause of her present provide any real meaning.

Porter shifts the setting from Mexico to New York in “Theft” (1929), but the wasteland theme remains. An unnamed young woman discovers her purse missing and, attempting to determine what has happened to it, recalls the events of her previous night, all of which reveal the lack of any meaningful relationships in her life. Realizing that the female janitor has evidently stolen her purse, the young woman wavers between confronting her and staying quiet. In the past, she has rejected all possessions because owning things means being responsible for them, caring for them. Likewise, she has shut herself off from all relationships and has, like Laura, said “no” to life. She realizes that the true thief is herself, that she is responsible for her own losses. Apparently unable to change, however, she remains a wasteland figure, another character without love.

A similar fate awaits Ellen “Granny” Weatherall in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” (1929), another of Porter’s highly regarded and frequently anthologized stories. On the last day of her life, eighty-year-old Granny floats in and out of consciousness as she recalls the past and confuses it with the present. Predominant in her recollection is a life-determining event that she has tried for sixty years to forget—her jilting by George. Even a “fine” husband, as she calls John, and a large family have left her unfulfilled. Determined to order her life, to “tuck in the edges,” she has struggled on and weathered all, only to find herself, at the end of her life, once again without a bridegroom, without a God to claim her for His own. By withholding herself, constantly rejecting life, Granny has betrayed herself and is left lonely, not only in this world but also in eternity.

Two other stories center on the disorder of a troubled marriage. “Rope” (1928) presents a bitter quarrel that focuses outwardly on the coffee that a husband has forgotten to buy for his wife and a piece of rope that he has spontaneously purchased. Although the quarrel ends on a seemingly peaceful note, reverberations of the bitter exchanges foretell the unraveling of the marriage. In “The Cracked Looking-Glass” (1932), a woman in her mid-forties, celebrating her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with a husband thirty years older than herself, recognizes the sterility of her marriage and also her inability to change her life. Like “Rope,” the story ends with a temporary resolution of conflict but with suggestions of continued problems.

Although the story “He” (1927) also presents a troubled marriage, it focuses primarily on the relationship of the wife, Mrs. Whipple, and her mentally retarded child, referred to only as “He.” Hypocritically obsessed with concerns about society’s view, she professes great love for her son while actually desiring his death. Only when forced to take him to the county home does Mrs. Whipple finally realize how cruelly she has treated him, but she is helpless to change his condition or hers.

Another woman doomed in a hopeless situation, Ninette in “Magic” (1928) attempts to flee the corruption of the brothel where she is trapped, but she finds the outside world equally sordid and returns to her former life. Her wasteland is as bleak as that of any Porter character, although ironically the narrator of the story presents it essentially as a fairy tale, with Ninette’s return to the brothel viewed as a happily-ever-after ending.

Context

Highly praised following its initial publication by such critics as Allen Tate and Yvor Winters, Flowering Judas, and Other Stories, as well as Porter’s subsequent fiction, has continued to receive almost universal critical acclaim. Porter’s stories were soon included in the canon of American literature, and her stories were frequently anthologized at a time when only a handful of women were included. By the time of her death, one or more of her stories appeared in virtually every anthology of American literature and of the short story, ranking her among the most widely acclaimed American women writers of the twentieth century.

Critically successful before the days of feminism, Porter disdained being called a feminist despite ample evidence of the appropriateness of such a designation. Her rejection of the identification was likely tied to her individualism, her refusal to be linked to any group. Nevertheless, her work clearly contains some of the most psychologically realistic portraits ever created of twentieth century women caught between the old and new order, struggling for the integration of self. In quantity, the overall body of Porter’s fiction is relatively slight, but its overall quality, especially Flowering Judas, and Other Stories, ensures Porter a significant place in American literature.

Bibliography

Carr, Virginia Spencer, ed. “Flowering Judas”:Katherine Anne Porter. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993. An indispensable casebook of the title story “Flowering Judas.” Among the seven essays is Ray B. West’s “Katherine Anne Porter: Symbol and Theme in ‘Flowering Judas,’ ” the first and still one of the most influential criticisms of the work. West groups the symbols into three major areas—religion, secular life, and love—and concludes that Laura is lost because of her failure to recognize the necessity of love.

DeMouy, Jane. Katherine Anne Porter’s Women: The Eye of Her Fiction. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Though flawed by inaccuracies, this is a significant feminist study which argues that the major theme of Porter’s work is the internal conflict of women caught in a changing society. Includes Freudian and mythic interpretations.

Hendrick, Willene, and George Hendrick. Katherine Anne Porter. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1988. An important general introduction to Porter’s work, with its brief biography and an examination of the writings individually as well as collectively.

Mooney, Harry J., Jr. The Fiction and Criticism of Katherine Anne Porter. Rev. ed. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962. Provides valuable insight into the political implications of Porter’s work. Argues that while Porter’s fiction centers on the suffering and disillusionment of the individual in the modern world, it also reveals her compassion for humanity and suggests the possibility of hope amid the despair evoked by the individual’s predicament.

Nance, William L. Katherine Anne Porter and the Art of Rejection. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964. An important study, though compromised by an apparent desire to fit Porter’s work into a unified theme—rejection.

Unrue, Darlene Harbour. Truth and Vision in Katherine Anne Porter’s Fiction. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985. Provides an insightful study of Porter’s major themes and concerns.

West, Ray B. Katherine Anne Porter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963. A short but good introduction to Porter’s work which emphasizes the autobiographical aspects of her protagonists and discusses the tensions produced in her characters by a changing society.