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A Study Guide for Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas"
A Study Guide for Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas"
A Study Guide for Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas"
Ebook35 pages24 minutes

A Study Guide for Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas"

By Gale and Cengage

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A Study Guide for Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 6, 2016
ISBN9781535823418
A Study Guide for Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas"

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    A Study Guide for Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas" - Gale

    7

    Flowering Judas

    Katherine Anne Porter

    1930

    Introduction

    Katherine Anne Porter allegedly wrote Flowering Judas in a single evening in December of 1929. After writing the story, she then rushed out after midnight that same night to mail it to the literary magazine Hound and Horn. Regardless of this anecdote’s accuracy, it is indisputable that Flowering Judas represented an artistic breakthrough for Porter. The next year—1930—she named her debut collection of short stories after this richly symbolic tale of an alienated young American woman set in Mexico City just after the Mexican Revolution. Flowering Judas and Other Stories garnered enthusiastic critical praise. Reviewers were consistently impressed with Porter’s original narrative style, her complex and tightly controlled symbolism, and her beautifully intricate language. Flowering Judas remains a staple of anthologies and is considered one of the best works of a master of the short story form. Its complex symbolism has intrigued several generations of readers and scholars.

    The character of Laura, the story’s protagonist, is set against that of Braggioni, a corrupt revolutionary leader who is courting her. The story takes place during an evening they spend together, as Braggioni’s singing and conversation mirrors Laura’s growing disenchantment with the revolutionary ideal that brought her to Mexico. Laura, a former Catholic, rejects the hypocrisy of the socialist revolutionaries who have come to power and she rejects the advances of Braggioni and several other ardent suitors, which leads to a crisis of faith and a sense of acute isolation. The theme of lost faith is amplified through the story’s Christian imagery, central to which is the complex figure of the flowering Judas, named for Christ’s betrayer.

    Author Biography

    Porter was born Callie Russell Porter on May 15, 1890, in a two-room log cabin in the Texas frontier community of Indian Creek. Porter’s mother died when she was two and her father brought his five children to live with his mother, Catherine Anne. Later, Porter took her grandmother’s name. When the grandmother died in 1901 the family suffered from emotional and financial instability. Porter and her sister helped

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