The major theme of this story by Katherine Porter is betrayal. Other themes include alienation, fear, corruption, despair and guilt. Laura, an idealistic American schoolteacher who traveled to Mexico to support the socialist revolution has a sense of impending doom. Trapped by the unwanted attentions of the corrupt, adulterous revolutionary Braggioni and with no love for the Mexican people, she feels lost and alone. Braggioni’s lifestyle is a betrayal of both his socialist ideals and marriage. In working for a socialist cause, Laura betrays her Catholic faith. Her sexual repression could also be seen as betrayal of her womanhood.
Laura’s dream of eating the flowers of the Judas tree symbolizes betrayal. This thought: But she cannot help feeling that she has been betrayed irreparably by the disunion between her way of living and her feeling of what life should be… begs a question. Betrayed by who (self, fate or God)? The only way out of the malaise she finds herself in involves betraying the revolutionary cause (the Mexican people), and perhaps even Braggioni himself.
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