Although Braggioni is cruel, he does not share Laura's emotional coldness. He exploits the trust of his followers and his wife, valuing their faith in him as a commodity. Through this, he encourages participation in what he sees as the true essence of love and its inevitable counterpart, betrayal. Laura, however, suppresses her desires and suffers from the despair of self-denial, isolation, and a loss of faith.

Critic Ray West interprets this story as a religious allegory that delves into three types of love: religious, secular, and erotic. Braggioni embodies secular love, characterized by power and greed, intertwined with a twisted erotic love for women. Laura, who grew up in the Catholic faith, finds it difficult to pray sincerely in church and rejects men's advances, emphasizing the connection between spiritual and physical love. In the end, Eugenio takes his own life using the narcotics Laura has been providing him, with his body and blood representing a dark sacrament of betrayal. Laura, the only character capable of love, ultimately betrays life itself.

This betrayal unfolds on several fronts. On a personal level, Laura feels she has let Eugenio down. She not only provides him with drugs but also turns down his romantic overtures, worsening his hopelessness. Politically, Laura senses the revolution is betrayed when Braggioni dismisses Eugenio as foolish for taking his own life, exposing Braggioni's view that people are only valuable for their usefulness to him. Psychologically, Laura is in a constant state of self-betrayal due to her inability to accept love in any form. She finds no comfort in divine love, lacks an adult partner to bond with, and is unable to connect with the children she educates.

Laura and Braggioni obviously live by different sets of values. The latter, who masquerades as a professional philanthropist, loves himself most of all and will exploit the revolution and the people whenever it is to his advantage. He will never die for his principles or his love for humanity. He is an egomaniac who uses people and things for his own benefit. Laura, in contrast, is filled with guilt to the point that she suffers from moral paralysis. She merely goes through the motions of being a teacher and rebel without understanding the reasons behind them. While Braggioni will betray anyone, Laura betrays herself. She is unable to compromise between her concept of life as it should be and life as it is. The chaotic world of revolutionary Mexico overwhelms her.

Braggioni is the primary problem for Laura, who has a romantic view of what a revolutionary leader should be. He does not have the gauntness, the heroic faith, the abstract virtues associated with the ideal leader; his bulk, Jockey Club clothes, selfishness, and indifference to political prisoners offend her. She is also worried by his courtship. The threat of violence is always in the background. He is fascinated by his power, which includes the right to own things and people. He indulges in his love of small luxuries, and Laura fears that she is being placed in that category; he eventually may demand more from her than delivering messages and cleaning his guns. She may be only an interlude for Braggioni, like the revolution itself, but that does not reduce the threat. Braggioni’s main concern is to be comfortable, to be flexible in his principles so that he can take care of himself as profitably as possible. He is at perpetual peace with himself, but Laura is lost.

Katherine Anne Porter began her writing career in the 1920’s, when the wasteland motif was popular. Stemming from T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land (1922), and a recurring theme in the work of writers such as E. E. Cummings, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Edgar Lee Masters, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner, this concept emphasizes the lack of morality in society. Economic values are more important than moral values. Money and social position are depicted as being the prime goals in life. In “Flowering Judas,” Braggioni is an example of a character who prospers in this kind of environment. Laura is an easy victim of those who play by rules that are foreign to her. She cannot come to accept the ugly reality of Braggioni. She is full of romantic error, according to the rebels, who have, in comparison, a strong sense of reality. Thus, Laura is not at home in the world. Like Prufrock, in Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917), she suffers from moral ennui. She acts without thinking, or, when she does think, she is incapable of meaningful action. Indeed, she aids the corrupt Braggioni and helps Eugenio commit suicide; because the values of her former life do not apply, she denies the value of everything. She gives in to her environment and tries to convince herself that things are beyond her control.

This resignation to her fate is a form of self-betrayal. She rejects her old value system but fails to replace it with a viable philosophy. She disclaims the principles of the revolution, the propositions of her suitors, and the love of her schoolchildren. Laura no longer makes moral decisions, and the wasteland claims her.