Flowering Judas

Setting is the literary device that establishes where and when a story is told. The setting of Mexico in “Flowering Judas” serves as an important backdrop for the events of the story. Near the end of the Mexican Revolution, Socialism emerged in the country. One of the Socialist movement’s objectives was to get the government to improve workers’ rights and conditions. Mexico’s 1917 constitution also prompted a separation between church and state, weakening the political power of the Catholic Church. While the Revolution was over in 1920 when the story takes place, the aftermath involved a new government replacing a dictatorship, and a period of transition and uncertainty. In Porter’s story, clashes are still taking place between opposing forces, as exemplified in the May-day conflict at the end of the narrative. Laura’s inner conflict is set against the backdrop of a fraught moment in Mexico’s history. Mexico’s secularism is alluded to when Laura secretly visits a “crumbling little church” (Paragraph 6). The building’s state of disrepair highlights the secularism of the new government, illuminating the tension between faith and politics in post-Revolution Mexico City.