ôouUiem ôtudJos • Volume Xll • Numbers I © II • ôprin^ôumincr 2005

In a 1923 letter to "The Century"magazine, Katherine Anne Porterdescnbed her personal connection

with Mexico by claiming, "I writeabout Mexico because it is my familiarcountry" ("Why I Write" 355). Porter'sfamiliarity with Mexico grew as shewas raised in Texas and accompaniedher father on several tnps to Mexicothroughout her youth. In 1920, she

Magic Dealisffl in "Flowering Judas"and the Dual Dealities of

Katherine Anne Porter's Time in Mexico

byEmron foplin

traveled to Mexico and remained therethroughout the Obregón Revolution(Lopez, "A Country" 121). and in1930 she rented a house in MexicoCity with hopes of finishing a novelwhile residing there (Bayley 211-Between 1920 and 1931, Porter spenta total of about three years living inMexico. Much of her early fictiontakes place in Mexico, and many of herstories are built around experiencesshe had there. Her famous short story

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"Flowering Judas" provides a specific example of how Porter wove herMexico experiences into her fiction. In an interview with Hank Lopez,Porter claimed that the opening scene of "Flowering Judas" was basedon an evening she spent chaperoning her friend Mary Doherty who wasnervous because a "fat revolutionist got in the habit of dropping by withhis guitar and singing to [her]" (qtd. in "A Country" 123).

Literary scholars tend to follow Porter's claim to Lopez that ail ofher fiction "is based very securely on something real in life" (123 originalemphasis), and a large amount of their scholarship on Porter comparesher fiction to her biography.' Several critics cite the interview betweenPorter and Lopez in their attempts to link Porter's biography to "FloweringJudas." In this tradition, I offer a magic realist reading of "FloweringJudas" that analyzes the story's dark undertones and resolves several keyquestions about Laura's constant fear of death, her imprisoned fiiends'strange description of time, and her bizarre nightmare that serves as thestory's finale.

My reading challenges the idea that literature can be cleanlydivided based on time period and regional or national origin by askingtwo specific questions. First, in which literary period should "FloweringJudas" belong? It was first published in 1930, five years before Jorge LuisBorges published Hisloria universal de la infamia^ a decade before MiguelÁngel Asturias began to publish his novels, and a whole twenty-fiveyears before literary critics began labeling the works of Borges, Astunas,and other Latin American vmters as magic realist literature. Second,how did Porter write "Flowering Judas" in a mode that was originallyconsidered to be an innate part of Latin America?^ The cultural contextthat led to Porter's intriguing portrayal of dual realities in "FloweringJudas" provides a convincing response to these questions, an answer thatreaffirms magic realism's original connections to Latin America whilesimultaneously questioning the ways we divide literature hy time periodand author nationality.

Biography as Everyday Reality in "Flowering Judas"Supernatural elements are presented alongside believable details

throughout "Flowering Judas," and the characters accept the supernaturaland the normal elements of the narrative as part of their fictional reality.The characters in "Flowering Judas" seem common and believable, buttheir normal world becomes supernatural when they deal -muí issues ofdeath and time. The coexistence of both a supernatural and a normal

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version of reality within "Flowering Judas" follows the logic that criticseventually employed to describe magic realist texts. In Magical Realismand the Fantastic, Amaryll Beatrice Chanady explains that the narrator ofa magic realist text must provide a balanced view between literary realismand the supernatural (46^8 ). Both the everyday and the aberrant viewsmust be present throughout the text so that a supernatural climax will notmake the narrative seem like a fairy tale or story of the fantastic. Theamount of time Porter spent in Mexico allowed her to create believablecharacters in "Flowering Judas" whose attitudes and actions reflectthose of Porter and several people she met in Mexico. Her biographicalcharacters are significant in a magic realist interpretation of "FloweringJudas," not merely because of their domination of the plot, but because themanner in which the narrator and the characters describe their everydayexperiences constructs the normal version of reality that must be presentto create a magic realist text.

The matter-of-fact setup of "Flowering Judas" becomesincreasingly important when viewing the story as a magic realist narrativebecause, as Chanady claims, the normal version of reality creates theframe that makes the supematural parts of the story believable (46-48).Because of the natural setting and the believable characters Porter createsin "Flowering Judas," the strange events—which become apparent earlyin the story and reappear throughout—can coexist with the normal,believable reality of revolutionary Mexico without contradicting eachother. The reader suspends her disbelief in the strange representationsof death and time throughout '"Flowering Judas," and especially duringthe supematurai finale, because the biographical characters do not doubtthe peculiar events and accept them as an equal part of their fictionalreality.

Porter's use of magic realism to combine two realities in"Flowering Judas" mirrors the dual relationships she fosters between twodistinct social circles whose ideas should clash but never do. ThomasWalsh describes the interesting contrast between Porter's two maingroups of friends in the late 1920s as follows: "While her SouthemAgrarian friends talked of recreating a paradise lost, her sociahst fiiendstalked of a paradise yet to be won, their arguments uneasily coexistingin separate compartments of Porter's mind as the years passed" (108).Like a magic realist story. Porter's social life cultivates two differentviews of reality. She associates with people whose convictions wouldbe expected to violently clash with one another, but both sets of opinions

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reside peacefully in the same place—her mind—even if they do maintainseparate spaces there. In Katherine Anne Porter: A Life, Joan Gi'vnerdescdbes how Porter, even from her youth, tded to mix contrasting socialideas without noticing the paradox. Givner claims that from childhoodtlirough maturity "Porter wavered in her class identification, now agitatingon the behalf of the down trodden, exploited people, now speaking proudlyof belonging to a slave-owning, adstocratic class" (61-62), Poder fiises abinary between the oppressor and the marginalized, and although conflictshould adse between the two views, in her mind they do not clash. Porter'saffiliation with socialist and Southem adstocratic circles at the same timeapproaches the dual reality construction of magic realist fiction. Shedoes not question either group's opinions in the same way the reader ofthe magic realist text suspends her disbelief and accepts the coexistenceof the natural with the supernatural.

Like Poder, Laura also associates with two groups who appearto be unable to reconcile their differences—the Catholic Church and thesocialist revolutionanes. Walsh summarizes "Flowering Judas" by callingit a story about an attractive girl "who betrays the conflicting principlesof her Catholic and revolutionary faiths, her companions, and herself"(121). Laura's actions suppod Walsh's claim: "She was bom RomanCatholic, and in spite of her fear of being seen by someone who mightmake a scandal of it, she slips now and again into some crumbling littlechurch, kneels on the chilly stone, and says a Hail Mary on the gold rosaryshe bought in Tehuantepec" ("Flowedng" 92). Although she sees thedifferences between the two ideologies that she is trying to simtiltaneouslyespouse, Laura is unwilling to renounce either, thus betraying the idealsof both. Her desire to maintain a contradictory set of beliefs resemblesthe depiction of the world in a magic realist text where clashing 'views ofreality grow alongside each other without coming into conflict. Like thenatural and the supernatural realities that coexist throughout "FlowedngJudas" without ever destroying each other, Laura's revolutionaryconvictions and her religious faith never invade one another's space, andshe is never forced to decide between the two.

Death and Time in Magic Realist FictionAlthough Laura's character shows the fusion of two distinct social

ideas, the pdnciparl opposition or contrast in "Flowering Judas" existsbetween two views of reality rather than between two social spheres.The normal reality that Porter creates in "Flowedng Judas" follows

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Laura through several believable activities such as teaching English in anelementary school, delivering messages to revolutionaries in hiding, andlistening to moonlit serenades. The supernatural reality that also existsthroughout the entire story demonstrates Laura's anxiety about an ever-present death and her preoccupation with time. While a preoccupationwith death and time is not singular to magic realism, these two themesare staples of magic realist literature. A few examples of how some LatinAmerican authors deal with these issues m magic realist fiction will helpdistinguish how their portrayals in "Flowering Judas" cast this story asa magic realist narrative.

Mexican author Elena Garro offers several examples of howdeath and communication between the living and the dead are depictedin magic realist fiction. In her one act play Un hogar solido [A SoundHome], all ofthe characters are dead, but they continue to live m a limbozone within their family tomb where they play, argue, and recollect betterdays just as they did during their mortal lives. When another character,Lidia, finally dies and joins her family members, she is not surprised tofind that they are all in the cemetery together and that they must continueto wait for judgement day (Tres Dramas 4\-42). Lidia accepts her newworld—a world where the dead li\'e together in much the same way theydid when they were alive, only underground—without questioning thereality ofthe situation. In Garro's short story "Perfecto Luna." Perfectoaccepts the fact that he is being haunted by the ghost of a dead man whoseskeleton he has disturbed (5'emaiïo 185). Later, Perfecto dies and carrieson a long conversation with this headless dead man, thinking the entiretime that he is still alive and that the situation is completely normal ( 177-89). Both of Garro's works show how the characters within magic realisttexts consider supernatural events—specifically communication with thedead or with death personified—as part of their reality. The charactersaccept the dead's capability to communicate with them, and they willinglyparticipate in the conversation.

Along with death, time acts as an important trope in magic realistliterature. In his groundbreaking yet later contested article, "MagicalRealism in Spanish American Fiction," Angel Flores discussed theimportance of time in magic realist texts claiming, "[t]ime exists in akind of timeless fluidity and the unreal happens as part of reality" (191).'In Juan Rulfo's short story "Luvina," the narrator describes how timechanges in the strange, little town. He explains that he lost track of tune

living there because no one counted the hours (126). Time is not

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calculated in Luvina, and this lack of measurement literally changes theway the characters experience time. The narrator does not know how longhe lived there, but he feels that it "must have been an eternity" becausetime in Luvina "is very long" (126). Garro's novel Los recuerdos delporvenir [Memories of the Future] provides an even more overt exampleof how time changes in magic realist texts. At a major point of conflictbetween Julia, Felipe Hurtado, and General Rosas, time stops whileFelipe and Julia escape on horseback. The remaining characters and thetown of Ixtepec itself are caught in a dreamlike state that exists "outsideof time, suspended in a place without wind, without murmurs, withoutthe sound of leaves nor breath" (145-46)/ In both of these texts, timeloses its power, and the plots continue accordmg to each story's relativeversion of time. This phenomenon can be as subtle as when Luvina'snarrator claims that time seems different or as blatant as the example inLos recuerdos del porvenir when time literally stops.' Either way, thecharacters of the texts accept the distortions of time as normal, logicalparts of their lives.

Death and Time—The Supernatural Realit>' in "Flowering Judas"The characters and ambience Porter creates in "Flowering Judas"

are easily believable until Laura's nightmare breaks away from acceptedreality. Although her dream is the most shocking event in the story,several supernatural clues run throughout "Flowering Judas" and preparethe reader to accept this bizarre scene. The strange finale depends onPorter's treatment of death and time which she manipulates in a mannerthat resembles Garro's and Rulfo's portrayals of these two elements.In Laura's nightmare. Porter does not treat death and time accordingto the natural pattern she uses to create the other elements in the story,instead, time figuratively stops, and Eugenio's ghost drags Laura towarddeath ("Flowering" 101-102). Porter's strange treatment of death andtime can be explained by her own preoccupation with these two subjectswhile she lived in Mexico. Porter's perspective on death changed whilein Mexico, and death's presence became a constant for her. In a letter toKenneth Burke she stated, "[pjoverty is a constant problem for millionseverywhere, and death menaces us alike: but it seems more immediate andunescapable here, more universal" (qtd. in Bayley 26). Death's nearnesswas not Porter's only worry while in Mexico; she was also tormented bynightmares about time. In a letter to Allen Täte she wrote, "I'm terrifiedanyhow, and have a recurring dream of Time as a thing past, done forever.

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I stand in a world in which nothing has changed apparently, but nothingmore can come to pass because there is no more time" (qtd. in Bayley30).

Porter wrote these letters to Burke and Täte in October 1930and January 1931, approximately six months after she first published"Flowering Judas" back in the United States (Bayley 23, 27), Thus, thelink between Porter's increasing fear of death and her nightmare abouttime might seem anachronistic unless we consider Porter's previousstays in Mexico. In the early 1920s, Porter lived m Mexico during theObregón Revolution, a time Hank Lopez describes as "charged withexplosive tension" and prone to "riots" {Indian Creek 73), In her 1923letter to "The Century," Porter also recalled a battle of the earlier Maderorevolution where she watched Maderistas and Federal soldiers kill eachother, and the dead were "piled for burning in the public square" ("WhyI Write" 355). An old indigenous woman referred to the battle by tellingPorter, "'[ijt is all a great trouble now, but it is for the sake of happinessto come'" (355). These sources demonstrate that even before her yearand a halfstay in Mexico from early 1930 to late 1931, Porter had alreadyexperienced death and time in Mexico in a way tbat she did not in theUnited States.

Walsh warns that several of Porter's famous descriptions of herfirst long trip to Mexico, including the preceding discussion she hadwith the old indigenous woman, are actually fictional experiences thatshe created to increase her authenticity (5). The idea that Porter wouldcreate and sell a fictional dialogue about her time in Mexico as though itwere biography reveals more than her desire to be considered a crediblesource on Mexican events. This dialogue suggests that to be able to copewith her fears of death and time in Mexico Porter needed to fictionalizethem, Walsh also claims that Porter's 1920s stay in Mexico was "one ofthe most important periods of her long life" because she was an "insider"in "the workings of the govemmenf ' and "was personally involved inpolirical intrigue" (47), He continues that "[a]ll the conflicting forcesat work in Mexico formed a battleground in her psyche, and, ten yearslater, found expression in 'Flowering Judas'" (48), Porter's preoccupationwith death and time did not begin in the 30s. Her communication withBurke, her letter to Täte, and her fictionalized conversation with the oldindigenous woman indicate that her disparate view of death and time inMexico began at least ten years prior to her first publishing of "FloweringJudas" and that to deal with this new understanding of death and time.

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she needed to write about it.To portray her distress about death and time in Mexico, Porter

could not treat these elements the same way she created the naturalsetting of "Flowering Judas" because her experiences with death andtime in Mexico deviated from her previous understanding of reality thatthe rest of the story is based upon. She needed to deal with her fears ona different plane where they could be personified, through Eugenio asa guide to death, and realized, tlirough a figurative suspension of time.Seen from another angle, death's ghostly escori and a stoppage of timeactually represent a different or second reality that seems to contradictthe rational view that Porter creates from the beginning of the story butactually coexists with it. In the manner explained by William Spindler(80), Porter makes an anthropological connection between her anxietyand the mythical beliefs of Mexican culture. The second reality shecreates in "Flowering Judas"—like her letters to Burke, Täte, and "TheCentury"—becomes Porter's way of dealing with the differences she feltin death and time while living in Mexico.

At a glance, "Flowering Judas" falls into what Chanday calls thefantastic because the supematural world presented in Laura's nightmareseems to contradict the normal atmosphere of the rest of text. But, aclose reading of "Flowering Judas" reveals several supematural hintsabout death and time that create the possibility for a second reality whichculminates in Laura's nightmare. Porter's treatment of death and timethroughout "Flowering Judas" makes a magic realist reading of the finaleand the entire text possible because the climax can no longer be readas merely a fantastic nightmare that clashes with the story's otherwiseeveryday feel.

The first supematural incident occurs early in "Flowering Judas"when the narrator claims that "Laura feels a slow chill, a purely physicalsense of danger, a waming in her blood that violence, mutilation, ashocking death wait for her with lessening patience" (93). This strangeexplanation of Laura's feelings about death comes at a moment in the textwhere Laura is in no immediate danger, and in a sense, this revelation ismore shocking than the eventual finale because this is the first hint at thesupematural. Laura's fear of a violent death not only marks the entranceof the supematural into the text, but it also casts "Flowering Judas" as amagic realist story rather than a fantastic narrative because of the waythe narrator and characters react to the situation.

In a fantastic text, the characters and narrator either reject any

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altemative views of reality flat out, or they seek to explain the newversion of reality according to their rational world view and thus take thesuper or inexplicable part out of the supernatural version of reality. Themagic realist text treats the supematural in nearly the opposite fashion.According to Luis Leal, the magic realist author does not "justify" thesupematural occurrences within the text (234). Chanady agrees with Lealbut also adds that "the characters and reader do not try to find a naturalexplanation" for the supematural event "as is frequently the case uath thefantastic" (24 ). In "Flowering Judas" the reader may try to explain Laura'seede dread of death, but Laura and the narrator do not seek to do so, Lauradoes not think her impending sense of death is strange, and she does notanalyze her fear. The narrator does not explain away the supematuralmoment by trying to rationally decipher Laura's fear and link it to a naturalcause. Instead, the narrator lets Laura's fear of death remain disjointedfrom any rational explanation, and her fear acts as an introduction to astrange reality that is accepted as real and not fantastic.

The second hint at death comes only a few pages later when thenarrator claims that Laura "stdves to cultivate" a patient attitude "againstthat disaster she fears, though she cannot name it" (97), This passagereiterates Laura's fixation witb death while once again painting her fearas a normal, acceptable presence, Laura does not know the form inwhich death wül approach her, but she waits for it patiently. The feelingof death seems to be Laura's constant companion, but again, the narratordoes not seek to explain why. The narrator does not link Laura's fear ofdeath to the starvmg or imprisoned individuals Laura deals with everyday, and she does not try to offer a psychological link between Laura'sdread and the revolutionary atmosphere in which she lives. The narratorallows the reader to draw her o'wn conclusions about death and Laura;and thus, Laura's premonition remains constant until it is finally fulfilledas part of the magic realist finale.

In his seminal work El laberinto de la soledad [The Labyrinth ofSolitude], Octavio Paz descdbes death in Mexico as a constant presencemuch the way Porter depicts death in Mexico in her letters and creates itas an omnipresent threat in "Flowering Judas." Paz clauns that Mexicansdo not shy away from the word death in the same way people from theUnited States do, but that they talk and joke about it incessantly becauselife in Mexico is so difficult that death creates no fear(52). The consistentpresence of death in Mexico increases dramatically dudng the fiestaswhen people eat skull shaped candy and bone shaped bread (53), and

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sudden emptions of violence and murder all "form part of the party"(44).' Porter's description of death's proximity in Mexico and Laura'scurious fear of death throughout "Flowering Judas" resemble the death thatPaz calls a Mexican reality. But, this Mexican reality is foreign to bothLaura and Porter, and it becomes a second type of reality that continuesto grow alongside their version of reality where death is a distant, taboosubject.

Paz's description of the fiesta also provides a natural transition intothe second supematural vein—the stoppage of time—that runs throughout"Flowering Judas" and hints toward Laura's dramatic nightmare. Duringthe fiestas, Paz asserts, "time stops being successive and retums to bewhat it was, and is, originally: a present where past and flitinre are finallyreconciled" (42). The first clue of time's reconciliation comes to Laurawhen she visits the imprisoned revolutionaries. They often lament, "timedoesn't pass in this infernal hole" ("Flowering" 94). Their complaintabout time is figurative rather than literal, but it plants the possibility oftime's suspension within the minds of Laura and the intended reader. Thesimple claim that time can stop makes Laura's later wish possible, and itforeshadows the introduction of her nightmare.

When Laura reflects upon Eugenio's death, she waits "fortomorrow with a bitter anxiety as if tomorrow may not come, but timemay be caught immovably in this hour, with herself transflxed, Braggionisinging on forever, and Eugenio's body not yet discovered by the guard"(99). A pause in time does not seem strange to Laura. She hears herfriends mention it, and she hopes, like Paz suggests, that future and pastwill be appeased through time's cessation after Eugenio dies. When"Flowering Judas" reaches its finale, both Laura and the reader arenot surprised by the figurative suspension of time because the text haspresented such a phenomenon as part of a different reality that coexistsalongside Laura s Anglo-American world view. Although both Laura'simprisoned friends' complaint about suspended time and Laura's wish thattime will stop are figurative suggestions rather than literal interpretationsof time, they accomplish the same end by changing how the charactersperceive time. Like the narrator in Rulfo's "Luvina," time also becomes"very long" (Rulfo 126) for Laura, especially when she tries to sleep.Since the characters, narrator, and reader can accept this new version oftime, Laura's nightmare can be interpreted as an example of magic realisminstead of fantastic literature.

The supematural hints that dot the text and create an altemate

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version of time and death for Laura finally culminate in the finale of"Flowering Judas," beginning with a figurative suspension of time.According to Gloria Bautista Gutiérrez, in magic realist texts time oftenstops flowing in a "linear" or "chronological" manner and becomes anelement that creates the "mar\'el" or mystery of the text (36),'' Suchis the case in "Flowering Judas," Throughout the text, the suspensionof time has been presented as a possibility, but at the onset of Laura'snightmare, it finally happens. Her dream begins with a question, "[t]hetolling of the midnight bell is a signal, but what does it mean?" ( 10! ). Atthis point, time loses its significance; and figuratively, it ceases to exist.As evidence of this phenomenon, Eugenio pays no attention to time ashe drags Laura toward death. He repeatedly tells Laura to hurry becausedeath "isa long way off" (102), but he talks in this manner because theymust travel a great distance to reach death, not because there is any limiton the time they have to reach then- destmation. Now that Laura is in thehands of the dead time means nothing because death will be waiting forher regardless of how long it takes Eugenio to pull her there.

Eugenio's ghost is the most significant manifestation of thesupernatural in the finale and in "Flowering Judas" as a whole. Lauraaccepts Eugenio's apparition as real because death has become a constantcompanion to her. Although Laura sees "that his hand was flesliless. acluster of small white petrified branches, and his eye sockets were withoutlight" ( 102), she does not question Eugenio's existence. She accepts hisghost as the personification of the feeling of death that has accompaniedher throughout the story. His mvitation and insistence on escorting hertoward death is no more strange than her constant intuition that death isalways near her. In fact, Eugenio is the realization of her premonition.

Laura's quick acceptance of Eugenio can also be explained as achain of connected events which Maria del Carmen Várela Bran lists assome of the characteristics of magic realist texts. Várela Bran suggeststhat among others an inner personal anxiety, an imagination, a dream,a teanng away from reality, and a creation of a second reality can bekey elements of a magic realist narrative (30), Each of these elementsis present in "Flowering Judas," The personal anxiety exists becauseLaura is worried that Eugenio's drug overdose and death are her fault("Flowering" 99-100). Laura lets her anxiety and guilt take root in herimagination as seen m the jumbled words that swim through her nearlysleeping mind and end "life with death—ah, Eugenio!" ( 101 ). Her anxietydistances her from her Anglo-American reality where time continues in

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a linear fashion and the word death remains taboo and places her in thesecond reality—the reality that Paz identifies as distinctly Mexican—thathas existed throughout the text where death is constant and time hasthe ability to stop. Her dream, then, becomes the domain of the secondreality—the place where time figuratively stops and death both physieallyand mentally accompanies her.

The change in time and the presence of death create the marvelof Laura's nightmare, and she accepts her situation because she hasbeen prepared for it. The ideas that time can stop or that the dead cancommunicate are not foreign to her, and throughout her dream, she neverquestions them. The narrator, too, does nothing to explain how time hasstopped or why Eugenio haunts Laura. Both Laura and the narrator accepttlie break in time and the presence of the dead as a part of the strange secondreality that has been allowed to coexist alongside rationality throughoutthe text. The reader, though, might initially doubt the authenticity ofthe nightmare because it portrays the supernatural as real. According toChanady, this doubt could create an obstacle for interpreting "FloweringJudas" as a magic realist story because "the supernatural within magicrealism does not disconcert the reader" (24), but Bautista Gutiérrez arguesthat their must surely be "a surprise" (38) within the magic realist text.Although these critics appear to be at odds with each other, my magicrealist reading of "Flowering Judas" reconciles their opinions because"Flowering Judas" contains both the initial surprise and the acceptance ofthe strange as normal. Eugenio's appearance and the suspension of timeoriginally shock or surprise the reader, but she soon accepts these eventsas integral parts of the different reality that has already been introducedand expanded upon. The fact that believable characters within a rationalplot have lived with what seem tobe irrational fears about death and timefrom the beginning of the story allows the supernatural portrayal of deathand time to culminate in the nightmare without contradicting the naturalsetting the reader has already accepted.

The fact that time's suspension and death's personification appearin a dream also helps the reader accept the supernatural events, hut atthe same time, the dream sequence is problematic for a magical realistreading of "Flowering Judas" because it runs the risk of explainingthe supernatural. Chanady claims that supernatural dreams do not"transform" realistic stories into "example[s] of magic realism" (57).Following Chanady's logic, labeling a supernatural experience as a dreamrationally explains the supernatural event and sucks the marvel out of the

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experience in much the same way a detective's rational thought processdemystifies a bizarre murder mystery. Several critics—including Leal,Spindler, and Chanady—agree that the magic realist does not explain thesupematural, but only Chanady suggests that dreams serve as rationalexplanations or foils to the possibility of magic realism. Várela Branopposes Chanady"s view about dreams and lists '"reality, imagination,and dream" as a combination of elements involved in magic realist texts(30). She also discusses how sleep and dreams play a significant rolein Asturias' Hombres de maiz [Men of Maize]—one of Latin America'smost famous magic realist novels ( 73-74). Following Várela Bran s viewabout dreams, Laura's nightmare becomes an essential pari of the magicrealism within "Flowering Judas" rather than ruining it.

Chanady s denial of dreams as a pari of magic realistic worksseems to deny the possibility of finding magic realism within "FloweringJudas." But, her stance on dreams contradicts her own use of the magicrealist label because she. too, calls Hombres de maíz a successful exampleof magic realism (41 ). Since dreams are an important part o^ Hombresde maíz, Chanady's claim that a dream cannot change a realistic text intoa magic realistic text must link back to her previous concern that thesupematural and the rational need to exist together throughout the text.Thus, a realistic story with one supematural dream does not become amagical realist narrative, not because the dream rationally explains thesupematural, but because it intrudes into a text where a second reality hasnot been constructed throughout. Laura's nightmare does not disquahfy"Flowering Judas" from the reahn of magic realism because throughoutthe story two difFerent realities coexist without contradicting one another,and her nightmare represents the amalgamation of the two versions ofreality, the final and complete fusion of the supematural and the rationalwithin "Flowering Judas."

While discussmg the importance of Laura's dream, 1 find itnecessary to problematize my own magic realist reading of "FloweringJudas" by asking how Freud ties into both my textual interpretation andthe links 1 forge between Porter's experiences m Mexico and her distortionof death and time in "Flowering Judas " I find this inquiry significantbecause of Freud's overarching influence on thinkers, writers, and peoplein general throughout the twentieth century. His work was so influentialthat some scholars claim, "[w]e are all Freudians, really, whether we haveread a single work by the Austrian psychoanalyst or not. [... ] The premisesof Freud's thought have changed the way the Westem world thinks about

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itself " (Murfin 114). To be sure, Ross Murfin's declaration must be takenwith a grain of salt because he is heavily invested in Freudian thought asa psychoanalytical cdtic of Joseph Conrad and others, but his statementdoes not seem too outrageous. Whether we have read Freud or not—andwhether we agree with bim or not—-his work with psychoanalysis anddreams affects the way we think about ourselves.

Poder was familiar with Freud and conscious of his influenceon both authors and their reading public. In the same letter in whichshe told Allen Täte of her repeated nightmare about the suspension oftime, she concluded by saying. "[l]ooking at that, I hope no good old-fashioned Freudian ever hears of it" (qtd, in Bayley 30), Porter sharedher fears with her fdends back in the United States via letter, but bymentioning Freud, she suggested that she might have self-censured herletters. Perhaps she felt embarrassed when revealing her feelings aboutMexico because they seemed illogical. When she did wdte about thesefears, she was quick to show her anxiety about her thoughts falling intothe wrong hands—Freudian hands—where they could be psychoanalyzed.Porter's direct reference to Freud demonstrates his overarching presencein twentieth-century thought, but it also shows how one can disagreewith Freud and read Porter's expedences in Mexico through a communalor Jungian lens rather than implementing Freud's psychoanalysis.Furthermore, if we consider Poder's sense of humor, her reference toFreud could be completely tongue-in-cheek, but her comment leavesher hfe in Mexico, not to mention her fiction, open to both Freudian andJungian cdtiques.'

"Flowedng Judas" and most examples of magic realist fiction canbe psychoanalyzed, but such a reading goes beyond the connections thenarrator provides. Chanady explains that "many magico-realist stodes andnovels lend themselves to psychoanalytical interpretation, or a symbolicanalysis. But this is a secondary level of meaning, [...] It should notovershadow the literal level since this is what determines into whichcategory the narrative falls" ( 105). A psychoanalysis of "Flowering Judas"can provide a valuable interpretation of the story, but the possibility of aFreudian reading of "Flowedng Judas" does not take away from the magicrealism within the story. The biographical link between Poder's anxietyabout death and time in Mexico might even seem hke psychoanalysis, butit is closer to a Jungian interpretation than a Freudian analysis because amagic realist reading makes a cultural connection that explains why Podertreats death and time in "Flowering Judas" the same way several Latin

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American magie realists do later in the century. The connections I drawbetween Laura, Eugenio's drug overdose, and Eugenio's apparition arelinks that I make as a reader in order to explain the constant existence ofa second, strange reahty in "Flowering Judas," but Laura and the narratordo not make these same connections. A psychoanalysis of Laura goesbeyond the details the narrator connects while a magic realist readingof "Fiowering Judas" makes similar connections in order to analyze thejuxtaposed realities that run through the text rather than the psyche ofthe main character.

"Flowering Judas '" ImplicatiODs on Region and Period

Porter's implementation of magic realism in "Flowering Judas"seems to predate the mode's birth and growth in Latin American fiction,thus questioning the common categorization of magic realism asprimarily a postmodem mode with Latin American roots. "' The idea that"Flowering Judas" contains magic realism problematizes any idea thatliterature can be cleanly divided and dissected according to time period.The story's 1930 publishing date, and Porter's repeated references to hercontemporaries, especially Faulkner, in her correspondence from Mexicosituate "Flowering Judas" within the heart of American modernism.But, her depiction of Anglo and Mexican realities—the natural and thesupematural—as coexisting and equal in "Flowering Judas" seems to fitwithin Lois Parkinson Zamora's description of magic realism as a binary-breaking mode ofthe postmodern (498). The deeper question that a magicrealist interpretation of "Flowering Judas" brings to the surface is notwhether magic realism is a modem or postmodem mode, but whether theliterary periods we call modernism and postmodernism significantly differfrom one another. The idea that a modernist short story like "FloweringJudas" contains magic realist elements suggests that magic realism dealswith situations that are universal enough to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that both modem and postmodem audiors are interestedin using this mode." Or, Porter's magic reahst depiction of Laura's lifein Mexico demonstrates how elements that began as tools of modernistfiction are still abundant in postmodem fiction—that the postmodem isan altered continuation of the modem rather than a reaction to or cleanbreak from it.

Porter published "Flowering Judas" five years before Borges'Historia universal de ta infamia supposedly began what Angel Florescalled the "new phase of Latin American literature, of magical realism"

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( 189). How did Porter so artfully employ what was originally considered aLatin American writing mode before the master authors of Latin Americabegan writing magic realism? Because she lacked any literary contactwith Borges, Asturias, and their Latin American contemporaries. Porter'spersonal experiences with time and death in Mexico in the early 1920sand 30s provide a convincing answer to this question.'^

I do not claim that Porter's life as an Anglo visitor in Mexicogave her the authority or the ability to experience Mexican culture^andthus a branch of Latin American culture—the same way native Mexicansexperience it. In fact, her ability to express North American realitytogether with the Mexican reality that Paz describes—a reality wheretime stops and death is a constant—without bringing the two views intodirect conflict depends on her outsider's view." This second version ofreality was new and sfrange to her, and she needed to portray it in fictionto better grasp it as a part of her everyday existence in Mexico. Also,I do not argue that Porter's use of magic realism in "Flowering Judas"marked the real beginning of magical realism. Instead, I suggest thatPorter's experiences with death and time in Mexico were similar to thoseof native Latin American authors like Asturias, Rulfo, Garro, and Paz,and that like them, Porter dealt with any issue that seemed illogical tothe Western mind on a magic realist plane.

Perhaps the more intriguing question is not how Porter wasable to delve into magic realism in "Flowering Judas" but what hercreation of a magic realist text means for Porter's fiction, fiction of theUS, South, and Mexican fiction. "Flowering Judas" demonstrates howPorter created fiction to better cope with her new encounters with deathand time, expenences she faced in a different south—Mexico—andexperiences that other Latin American authors believed were importantto authentically express. In an interview with Gunter Lorenz, Asturiasclaimed that "the basic and continuing mission of the Latin Americanauthor [is] to reflect the reality of his country" (57), and he urged LatinAmerican writers to "recreate the inhumane situation which dominatesour society" (57). Part of the answer to Asturias'call fora re-creation ofinjustice can be seen in magic realist fiction where both ever-present deathand pauses in time are treated as normal. Unfortunately, one injusticethat tormented twentieth-century Latin America was the threat and realityof Northem imperialism. Although Porter despised her home country'streatment of Latin America—^specifically the United States' relationshipwith Mexico—this malfreatment did not have the same effect on Porter

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that it had on her Mexican friends because she could always retum to herhomeland to avoid the ahuse. Nonetheless, Porter tried to refiect LatinAmerican reality in her fiction, even though she experienced it from anoutsider's point of view.

As seen in Asturias' fiction and Paz's prose, the nearness ofdeath and nonlinear time are familiar to Latin American authors, whilefor Porter, they were surprising and exasperating elements that shedid not experience to the same degree before she encountered them inMexico. Thus, Asturias', Garro's, or Rulfo's use of magic realism showsa second reality that has always been present m their countries—even iftheir educations distance them from this other version of reality—whilePorter's use of magic realism shows her fear of this second reality whichshe approaches as something new in Mexico,

Porter's creation of "Flowering Judas" as a magic realist textproblematizes the current trend of describing magic realism as apostmodern mode of fiction, but Porter's use of magic reahsm as an Anglo-American author only appears to challenge Latin America's original claimto magic realism, A magic realist reading of "Flowering Judas" actuallyconfirms magic realism's close connection to Latin America by delvinginto Porter's experiences m Mexico and connecting them to the strangeevents Laura, her protagonist, faces, Laura's nightmare and the story'sstrange treatment of death and time can now be seen as non-contradictoryparts of "Flowering Judas" because they help create a strange, secondreality. Laura receives this second reality without question, so the intendedreader is surprised but eventually accepts the supernatural reality as wellbecause it exists alongside a rational viewpoint from the beginning of thetext. The supernatural episodes within "Flowering Judas" are more thanfictional tools and more than just biography; they are cultural experiencesthat are firmly rooted in Porter's worries about time and death while inMexico,

Porter's use of magic realism presents a world where time canstop and death can stalk, a world that Paz claims is inherently Mexican,But, in his famous comparison between the United States and Mexico,Paz ignores the U.S. South as a unique entity and discusses the UnitedStates as a homogenous whole. Paz's lack of commentary about theaffinities between the US. South and Mexico—and thus, his dismissal ofthe differences between the US. South and the rest of the United States-becomes an important blind spot when considering Porter's relationshipwith Mexico because her other familiar country, Texas, exists as part of

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the unique region Paz ignores.In José Limón's American Encounters and Deborah Cohn's

Histoiy and Memoiy in the Two Souths, both of these literary criticsproblematize the dichotomy Paz establishes between the two sides ofthe Rio Grande. Limón labels any place where Mexicans live—whetherMexico proper, Texas, the U.S. South, or anywhere else in the UnitedStates—Greater Mexico (3). From this perspective. Porter could havecalled Mexico her familiar country even if she had never visited Mexicoproper because her Texas homeland was also inherently Mexican. Cohn'sdiscussion of the U.S. South and Latin America is even broader thanLimón's, and she calls Paz's dichotomy into question by describing theU.S. South and Latin America as '"neighboring spaces'" with "sharedhistories" of economic difficulty and political defeat that simultaneouslyconnect them to each other while separating them from the rest of theUnited States (2, 5). Following Cohn's argument, perceptions of deathand time would naturally be similar in Texas (the U.S. South) and Mexico(Latin America) because of their shared history of violence and forcedsubservience to the North. Thus, Porter's focus on death and time in"Flowering Judas" would reflect a Greater Southem (both Mexican andU.S. Southem) preoccupation about the two themes rather than an Anglopreoccupation about their exaggeration in Mexico.

While I agree with both Limón and Cohn that the borders betweenthe U.S. South and Latin America are far more blurry than Paz suggests,I still feel that Porter experiences time and death in a distinct way whileliving in Mexico and that she demonstrates her preoccupation with deathand time in "Flowering Judas." Even if the U.S. South's representationsof death and time are closer to Mexican reality than Mexican reality isto that of the North in general, they are still less intense than what Porterexperienced while traveling in Mexico." The world Porter creates in"Flowering Judas" is both mundane and strange for Porter, a mixtureof her Anglo world view and her view of Mexican reality. "FloweringJudas" becomes a hybrid story that is both North and Latin Americanin its sensibilities while not fitting comfortably within the traditions ofeither continent. While "Flowering Judas" is not Mexican fiction becausePorter captured and recreated death and time in Mexico from an outsider'sperspective, it can no longer be described merely as U.S. Southemliterature because she mixed an acceptable reality from the South withanother version of reality from the further South to construct a narrativethat seems both unreal and all too real in both places. While challenging

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the typical regional approach to "Flowering Judas'" as Southem literature,my magic realist reading of "Flowering Judas" also invites the readerto study Poder's text in its Mexican. Southem, and Anglo-Amedcancontexts as New World fiction, a choice example of literature of the pluralAmedcas.

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Notes

' For specific examples see Thomas F. Walsh's Katherine Anne Porterand Mexico; chapter two of José Limón's American Encounters;chapter two of Sheila Contreras' dissertation Blood Lines:Modernism, Indigenismo and the Construction of Chicana/o¡dentit}'; Flowering Judas: A Casebook edited by Virginia SpencerCarr; and Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations edited by JoanGivner.

While the term magic realism was actually coined by Franz Roh, aGerman art critic, writers like Alejo Carpentier and Miguel ÁngelAsturias and critics like Angel Flores and Luis Leal all seek toconnect magic realism to Latin American reality. For more onmagic realism's origins and its shifting definitions see AmaryllBeatrice Chanady's Magical Realism and the Fantastic: ResolvedVersus Unresolved Antinomy, William Spindler's "MagicalRealism: A Typology" in Forum of Modern Language Studies,and my own M.A. thesis—Magic Realism in Latin Americanand North American Fiction: Implications for Periodization andRegional Literatures.

Although Flores' article was later challenged by Luis Leal and manyothers, the claim that time is manipulated or warped in magicrealist fiction is not one of the statements that other criticsquestion. In fact, most magic realist analyses specifically examinethe portrayal of time.

The translations from Juan Rulfo's "Luvina" are my own.

The translations from Elena Garro's Los recuerdos del porvenir aremy own.

A discussion about why time and death stand out as repeated themes inLatin American literature would generate a worthwhile scholarlyproject in its own right. For my current purposes, I will focus onPorter's increased concem with these two elements while livingin Mexico.

All translations from Paz's El laberinto de la soledadmç my own.

The translations from Bautista Gutierrez's Realismo mágico, cosmoslatinoamericano are my own.

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Southern ôtudle* • Volume All • Number* I © II - ôpring/ôummer 2005

' Porter's sense of humor is well known. According to Porter's time linein Flowering Judas: A Casebook, Porter purchased a coffin afew years before she died and enjoyed climbing into it when sheshowed it off to guests and friends,

'" The majority of the contemporary essays contained in Wendy Fans'and Lois Parkinson Zamora's superb collection of essays. MagicRealism: Theory. Hisioiy. Community, argue, along vtith Fans andZamora, that magic realism is inherently postmodern because itportrays the view of the marginalized Other alongside and equalto Western rationale.

" In The Condition of Postmodernity-, David Harvey claims thatfi^gmentation stands out as a specific condition that exists m boththe modem and the postmodern (44), I suggest that death andtime create another condition or preoccupation that is universalenough to exist as part of modernism and postmodernism,

'- Porter wrote the introduction to Angel Flores and Dudley Poore'scollection. Fiesta in November—Stories from Latin America, m1942, but no evidence in her letters from abroad, her essays, or herstories suggests that Porter had read stories by any of the authorsin this volimie before publishing "Flowering Judas" in 1930.

'* In a sense, all magic realists are outsiders because their Westerneducations distance them from the strange reahties they experiencein life and weave into their fiction. For more on this point, see page22 of Chanady's Magical Realism and the Fantastic: ResolvedVersus Unresolved Antinomy and my discussion of Cristina Garcíam Magic Realism in Latin American and North American Fiction:Implications for Periodization and Regional Literatures.

" Porter's experiences in Texas and Mexico open the door for a futurescholarly project aimed at understanding the similarities betweenfictional representations of death and time in Latin Americanfiction and fiction of the US, South, Perhaps a study of theaffinities between the portrayals of these two elements could leadto the claim that distorted death and time are components of aGreater Southem literature that encompasses Latm America andthe US. South.

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Works CitedAsturias, Miguel Ángel. Hombres de maiz. 1949. Guatemala: Piedra

Santa, 1996,

Bautista Gutiérrez, Gloria, Realismo mágieo, eosmos latinoamericano.Bogotá: Editorial América Latina, 1991,

Bayley, Isabel, ed. Letters of Katherine Anne Porter. New York: AtlanticMonthly Press, 1990,

Chanady Amaryll Beatrice, Magieal Realism and the Fantastic: ResolvedVersus Unresolved Antinomy. New York: Garland, 1985.

Cohn, Deborah N. Liistory and Memory in the Two Souths: RecentSouthein and Spanish American Fiction. Nashville: VanderbiltUP, 1999.

Contreras, Sheila. Blood Lines: Modernism, Lndigenismo, and theConstruction of Chicana/o Identity. Unpublished Dissertation:University of Texas Austin, 1998. Ann Arbor; UMI, 1998.9905718,

Earis, Wendy B., and Lois Parkinson Zamora. Magical Realism: Theory,History. Community). 1995. London: Duke University Press,2000.

Flores, Angel. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction," Hispania38(1955): 187-92.

Garro, Elena. "Perfecto Luna." La semana de colores. Xalpa, Mexico:Universidad Veracnizana, 1964,

—, Los recuerdos del poi-venir. 1963, Mexico City: Joaquín Mortiz,1997.

—. "Un hogar solido." Tres dramas mexicanos en un acto. Ed. JeanineGaucher-Shultz and Alfredo O. Morales, New York: Bobbs-MerriU, 1971.

Givner, Joan. Katherine Anne Porter: A Life. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1982.

—. Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations. Jackson: University Press ofMississippi, 1987.

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ôouthem Studies • Volume All • Numbers \& W - ôpring/ôummer 2005

Harvey, David. 77ie Condition ofPostmodemity. Cambridge: Blackwell,1990.

Leal, Luis. "El realismo mágico en la literatura hispanoamericana."Cuadros Americanos 153 (1967): 230-35.

Limón, José E. American Encounters: Greater Mexico, the United Slates,and the Erotics of Culture. Boston: Beacon, 1998.

Lopez, Hank. "A Country and Some People I Love." Katherine AnnePorter: Conversations. Ed. Joan Givner. Jackson: University PressofMississippi, 1987. 120-34.

-^, Conversations with Katherine Anne Porter: Refugee from IndianCreek. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1981,

Lorenz, Gunter W. "'Hearing the Scream: An Inter\'iew with Nobel Prize-winner Miguel Angel Asturias."-4r/a5 14.6 (1967): 56-58.

Murfin, Ross C. "What is Psychoanalytic Criticism." Heart ofDarkness:A Case Study in Contempoj-aiy Criticism. Ed. Ross C. Murfin.New York: St. Martins, 1989. 114-23.

Paz, Octavio. El laberinto de ¡a soledad. 1950. Mexico City: FDCE,1972.

Porter, Katherine Anne. "Flowering Judas." The Collected Stories ofKatherine Anne Porter. New York: Harcourt. 1966. 90-102.

—. Flowering Judas: A Casebook. Ed- Virginia Spencer Carr: NewBrunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993.

—. "Why I Write About Mexico." 1923. The Collected Essays andOccasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter. Boston: HoughtonMifHin/Seymour Lawrence, 1970. 355-56.

Rulfo, Juan. "Luvina." El llano en llamas. 1953. Madrid: Cátedra, 1985.119-28.

Spindler, William. "Magic Realism: A Typology." Fonim of ModernLanguage Studies. 29.1 (1993): 75-85.

Várela Bran, Maria del Carmen. Funcionalidad de las claves estéticasdel realismo mágico en la novela hispanoamericana. Pontevedra,Spain: Diputación de Pontevedra, 1996.

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Walsh, Thomas F. Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico: The Illusion ofEden. Austin: U of Texas P Austin, 1992.

Zamora, Lois Parkinson. "Magical Romance/Magical Realism: Ghostsin U.S. and Latin Amedcan Fiction." Magical Realism: Theory,Histoiy. Community. 1995. Ed. Wendy B. Fads and Lois ParkinsonZamora, London: Duke UP, 2000, 497-550,

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