Katherine Porter Judas

Katherine Anne Porter, born Callie Russell Porter, was the fourth child of Harrison Boone Porter and Mary Alice Jones Porter. Katherine Anna Porter moved with her father and siblings to Kyle, Texas after the loss of her mother. Her family had gone to live with Harris' mother, Catharine Ann Skaggs Porter--a strong-willed woman who had told her grandchildren romantic stories about her slaveholding family's life in Antebellum, Kentucky. "Porter absorbed her grandmother's independence, Victorian manners, Protestant view of good and evil, and the stories from which she later created an important stream in her fictional canon" (Unrue). Katherine Porter was an accomplished women. Even though she had gotten sick, she managed to work as a journalist …show more content…
"Then eat these flowers, poor prisoner, said Eugenio in a voice of pity, take and eat: and from the Judas tree he stripped the warm bleeding flowers, and held them to her lips. She saw that his hand was fleshless, a cluster of small white petrified branches, and his eye sockets were without light, but she ate the flowers greedily for they satisfied bother hunger and thirst. Muderer! said Eugenio, and Cannibal! This is my body and my blood. Laura cried, No!" (875). This passage shows symbolism of the Judas by using the Judas tree. In the part of the Judas tree and its flowers represent Eugenio and Laura is the Judas. Before Laura begins eating the flowers-offered to her by Eugenio--she notices that he had no flesh on his hands. As she eats devours them, Eugenio calls her a murder and a cannibal. She is called a cannibal because the flowers represent his bones and skin. He calls her a murderer because she participated in his death. Although she did not directly murder him, she played a role in his death by not getting help when she found that he had overdose--she betrayed him. "That night Laura goes to sleep thinking about Eugenio, the deceased prisoner. He comes to her in a dream and tells her to follow him. She says she will follow only if he offers his hand to her. This moment is significant as Laura has been devoted, up to …show more content…
When Porter describes Laura's dream, she uses imagery to show betrayal. "Without a word, without fear she rose and reached for Eugenio's hand, but he eluded her with a sharp, sly smile and drifted away. This is not all, you shall see — Murderer, he said, follow me, I will show you a new country, but it is far away and we much hurry. No, said Laura, not unless you take my hand, no; and she clung first to the stair rail, and then to the topmost branch of the a Judas tree that bent down slowly and set her upon the earth, and then to the rocky ledge of the cliff, and then to the jagged edge of the sea that was not water but a desert of crumbling stone" (875). Imagery is used in this passage to show how Laura's dream is not as it should be. Eugenio gave her a "sly smile and drifted away." This shows that whatever he plans on doing in this dream is no good. Sly smiles typically mean you are up to something. Laura notices the jagged edge of the sea—but there is no water. The "sea" is a desert of crumbling stone. It symbolizes the betrayal of Laura when Eugenio dies. The crumbling stone represents the things that have gone wrong. Another use of imagery in the story is when Eigenio is pressing the flowers from the Judas tree to Lauras lips. She notices he has no flesh, and the "small white petrified branches" (representing his bones).cahe notices these, but doesn't seem to realize anything is wrong. It is only when Eugenio starts