Judas Iscariot, the disciple, hanged himself from a tree after betraying Jesus Christ and giving him a kiss. The tree in which Judas hanged himself is known as “Judas Tree” mainly found in Southern Europe and Western Asia. In the short story “Flowering Judas” written by Katherine Anne Porter the title is related to this religious event of betrayal, murder, and denial. The two main characters in this short story are Braggioni and Laura. Braggoni is a cruel, powerful leader of Marxist revolutionaries in and around Mexico City. Laura a beautiful American women, age 22, who took up residence in Mexico. The most known theme in Porter’s short story “Flowering Judas” is betrayal. Laura, Braggioni, Braggioni’s wife, and Eugenio are all guilty of betrayal.
Laura betrayals love in her life. By rejecting all men who intend to reach for her heart. Laura pictures Braggioni a “revolutionist would be lean, animated by heroic faith, a vessel of abstract virtues” (Porter p.1692). Picturing a revolutionist as a Christ figure. Laura betrays Braggioni by leading him to believe that she is interested in him. “She knows what Braggioni would offer her, and she must resist tenaciously without appearing to resist” (Porter p. 1692). Laura does not intend to tell Bragioni to vanish from her life. Laura fears that she might mess with his pride and knows that Braggioni is powerful that it can lead in to hurting her. Porter states “Braggioni is cruel to every one, for it is dangerous to offend him, and nobody has this courage” (p. 1992). Not only is Laura betraying Braggioni but Braggioni’s wife as well. Laura is committing adultery by being leading false judgment on a married man, and she can cause a separation of somebody else’s marriage. A nineteen ye...
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...ura declares that she has taken the narcotics to Eugenio. In the last supper where Jesus Christ presented his disciples with bread as his body and wine as his blood; they were to eat and drink of it in memory of him and accepting him as their savior. In the end of the story Porter presents to us a related event in a dream that Laura has with Eugenio. Eugenio says to Laura in the dream “Then eat these flowers, poor prisoner,” and from a Judas tree he stripped the warm bleeding flowers, and held them to her lips (p.1700). Here Porter mentions Judas as to referring to the disciple that betrayed Jesus. By Laura accepting and eating the bleeding leave from Eugenio, ripped from the Judas tree, she is accepting the contribution in his murder. Just as a Christian’s accept Jesus on Sundays by Holly Communion. Laura has betrayed Eugenio by participating in his murder.
The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America- Paul E. Johnson & Sean Wilentz
People all over the world continuously commit sins some are bigger than others and some do more damage. In the book, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a woman, Hester Prynne, is publicly shamed and force to wear a scarlet A upon her bosom for committing adultery. Throughout the book, Hester and her daughter, Pearl, try to adapt to life as an outsider. The two are continuously judged for Hester’s sin, and humiliated, however, they overcome this judgment and are seen in a different way. Hester and Pearl have been publicly shamed, Pearl has been considered an elfish devil like child, and after all the humiliation they were able to turn their lives around.
One must take careful consideration before acting because the aftermath can lead to a chain of events whose consequences can be disastrous. Nino Ricci’s Lives of the Saints is an excellent example of how the consequences of a persons actions can affect everyone around them, including themselves. First, Cristina makes several choices throughout the novel that not only reflect her thoughtlessness, but her inability to see that it affects people beyond herself. The repercussions of Cristina’s actions demonstrates that she does not take notice that her actions are affecting others. Cristina’s value system is distorted as she is not looking at what is best for her child but rather what is feeling good to her right now. Cristina Innocente is a selfish,
Flannery O’Connor’s story “Parker’s Back” introduces us to a man who feels incomplete and is seeking to fill the empty space in his soul. He attempts to do so the only way he knows how, by getting tattoos. He continues this until “the front of [his body is] almost completely covered…” (514). In fact, Parker even considers getting a religious tattoo to appease his over-zealously religious wife Sarah Ruth. A brush with death that is literally a “burning bush” experience drives him to mark the change in his life by getting that tattoo. He races to the tattoo parlor and demands to see the religious tattoos. He chooses a Byzantine Christ. In this story, Flannery O’Connor tries to show that although Parker’s attempts to quiet his unease provide temporary satisfaction (his tattoos and marrying Sarah Ruth), what Parker is really longing for is a relationship with God, a desire echoed in his choice of tattoo.
...ough Wright does not say it directly, this may even suggest that the victim Judas encounters could be Jesus on his way to be crucified. Judas temporarily forgets his intent to kill himself and runs to the victim, ignoring the soldiers. Then he remembers the Last Supper and the meal he ate with Jesus and the other apostles ("Bread my flesh had eaten"(12)), and his betrayal of Jesus with a kiss ("the kiss that ate my flesh"(13)). He goes to the man and "[holds him] for nothing is his arms"(14). In this line Wright compares Judas' payment for betraying Jesus to the fact that he now offers comfort for nothing.
Of the two sisters Lizzie and Laura, Laura is the one whose curious desires get the best of her. She and her sister encounter the goblin men and Lizzie just “thrust a dimpled finger / In each ear, shut her eyes and ran” (67 – 68); however, Laura’s curiosity gets the best of her and she chooses to stay: “Curious Laura chose to linger / Wondering at each merchant man” (69 – 70). These goblin men are selling fruit, and once Laura gets her hands on it, she is hardly able to stop herself. Quenching her desire is overwhelming for her, so much so that when she is finally done she “knew not was it night or day” (139). When she arrives home later, she tells her sister, “I ate and ate my fill, / Yet my mouth waters still; / Tomorrow night I ...
Adulterous relationships always end in pain. Examples of such pain are present throughout the intricate web of time. From Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers, to the media buffet of Bill Clinton, adultery leaves pain. Hester embodies this pain. Not in pity but in cause. She embodies pain. Pain of loss, suffering. The pain of adulterous relationships. The universal wronging of adultery is deserving of such pain. Even in present times, with views much lax than puritan epoch, the wrong exists in full force, and just as deserving. Nathaniel Hawthorn's "The Scarlet Letter" deals in the justice of adultery.
Two of Christina Rossetti's narrative poems, Goblin Market and The Prince's Progress, feature themes of women in love who appear betrayed — at a number of levels and with varying effects — by false ideals, false lovers, or what is in the background of betrayal by false ideals and false lovers: innocence; specifically, innocence as a deceptive ignorance to flexibility. The results of shortened expectations and heightened consciousness among Rossetti's victims of love vary greatly. Some become malicious. Others, like the bride in The Prince's Progress, die or are left confused by what amounts to the rape of their illusions. Yet some, like Laura in Goblin Market, ultimately benefit from their experiences and denial of illusions and earthly morals. They are led toward higher, more spiritual ideals of love and unconditional acceptance. By means of their suffering in love and their sacrifice to false ideals of love or pleasure, they are saved from the world.
“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,--it is impalpable,--it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.” (Hawthorne 115) Throughout the hostile novel The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne used contrasting settings to represent opposed ideas that were central to the meaning of the work. Some have argued that when it came to the theme that secrets have a destructive effect on the secret-keeper and truth, by contrast, was natural, a character evaluation would best advocate these differences. However, two settings, Dimmesdale’s house and the secrets that lie within, and the scaffold representing the truth, better embody the adverse ideas posed by the point at issue.
When a carriage crashes outside the castle, Laura becomes friends with the girl who was travelling inside it who is called Carmilla. There is an instant bond and attraction between the two females. Even though this text predates the modern day times of same sex relationships, and lesbianism by many years some readers may pick this relationship up to fall within this category. This may be surprising to many readers as this was a very secretive, taboo subject and was not talked about in public at all. It is never stated in the text that there was anything more to the friendship between Laura and Carmil...
Judas Iscariot, the disciple, hanged himself from a tree after betraying Jesus Christ and giving him a kiss. The tree in which Judas hanged himself is known as “Judas Tree,” mainly found in Southern Europe and Western Asia. In the short story “Flowering Judas” written by Katherine Anne Porter the title is related to this religious event of betrayal, murder, and denial. The two main characters in this short story are Braggioni and Laura. Braggioni is a cruel, powerful leader of Marxist revolutionaries in and around Mexico City. Laura is a beautiful American women, age 22, who took up residence in Mexico. Braggioni, Braggioni’s wife, and Eugenio also perform certain actions that make them betrayers, however Laura is Judas the betrayer in “Flowering Judas.”
The story of Lucretia begins with men boasting about their wives, trying to determine who is the best of them all. It is clear to them that Lucretia is the winner when she is found “hard at work by lamplight upon her spinning” (Livy, 100). She then moves on to be a gracious host to all of these men, again showing success in her womanly duties. Later that night one of the visitors, Sextus Tarquinis, comes into her room, and forces himself upon her, telling her that if she does not comply he will make it look like she had an affair with on of the servants (Livy, 101). She yields to him because she does not want it to seem as if she had an affair and n...
And she revelled in it, before it became too dangerous. She, unblinkingly, sent countless people to their deaths; she effortlessly imposed dreadful fear upon the young girls in the village, to the extent that one was reduced to insanity. She thought not once to stop, the euphoric indulgence was too great for her, because she could, she did. Ironically throughout her diabolical reign the one redeeming feature she possessed enforced her actions and accusations most powerfully, her illusive childlike innocence.
Let us first examine Laura. Walter seems to fall in love with Laura at first sight. She is the image of the perfect Victorian woman. She is beautiful, rich, and pliant. She is willing to do whatever it takes to make other people happy. She has a dee...
However, Florinda does not argue against the marriage to Antonio saying that she “has no defense to Antonio’s love” (879) because the only reason she does not want to be with him is her own feelings, which unfortunately do not account for much. Once their brother leaves, Florinda devises a plan to meet with Belville, in hopes of running away with him. She goes to the carnival in disguise and slips Belville a letter instructing him to come to “the Garden-Gate” (885) at “ten at night.” (885) The fact that Florinda must go to the trouble of disguising herself, sneaking out to a carnival, and slipping Belville a note filled with instructions just to meet with him against her brothers wishes, illustrates just how difficult it was for women to rebel against the men who control their lives.