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Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Martyr!, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Martyrdom and the Meaning of Life
Addiction and Sobriety
Queer Love and Repression
Iranian Identity vs. American Identity
Summary
Analysis
That night, Cyrus attends an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. His sponsor, Gabe, is in his late 50s and has been 33 years sober. Cyrus struggles to listen while others speak. When it’s his turn, he talks about how he lashed out at a woman at work. He thinks he liked having a sense of control. He goes on to talking about his childhood, how he used to be obsessed with talking to both God and his dead mother, clearly annoying some of the other AA members as he veers further off topic. He eventually sits down, and the next person talks about what a nice, sunny day it is to be sober.
This passage shows how Cyrus sees himself as a misfit in AA. To him, it seems like the others around him have a false sense of positivity about what it’s like to be sober. He doesn’t feel that his own darker story fits in with the narratives that many AA members tell. Still, this passage also points Cyrus’s limitations, suggesting that at this point in the story, he is so wrapped up in his own concerns that he struggles to see how others are similar to him.
Active
Themes
After the meeting, Gabe offers to take Cyrus to get coffee at Secret Stash, and Cyrus knows Gabe is worried about him. Over coffee, Gabe says he can tell Cyrus has been struggling with something lately. Cyrus admits that he has grown skeptical lately of the way people at AA talk of a higher power. He has been reading ancient Islamic mystics to try to find a higher power that resonates more with him. Gabe thinks that’s “bullshit” because Cyrus is the most American person Gabe knows.
This passage begins to show the way that Cyrus’s Iranian and American sides intersect with each other. Cyrus feels dissatisfied with his current life and wonders if his heritage, like the ancient Islamic mystics, could help him better deal with his current situation. Gabe, however, sees Cyrus as fully American. One of Cyrus’s challenges with reconciling his two identities is that he can’t control how others see him
Active
Themes
Two years ago, as part of AA, Cyrus had to tell Gabe all his secrets, including that he has had sex with men. He was surprised to learn that not only had Gabe himself slept with many men but that Gabe didn’t believe Cyrus was at all “straight passing.”
Active
Themes
Gabe is white and looks like John Wayne. He’s a single parent to his son Shane after his wife, whom he met in AA, relapsed and left him. Gabe tells Cyrus at the coffee shop that Cyrus’s poetry is too focused on Persian things that have nothing to do with his current life, like pomegranates. He thinks it’s a “shtick.” Part of Cyrus can see what Gabe is saying. Cyrus insists he wants to make deep, meaningful art.
Active
Themes
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Gabe pushes deeper, asking what Cyrus really wants in life. Cyrus considers this and says what he really wants is to die, but in a meaningful way. Gabe asks Cyrus if that means becoming a martyr, like a suicide bomber, but Cyrus can’t identify with suicide bombers and how certain they are of their faith. He eventually starts to get mad at Gabe over Gabe’s accusations that Cyrus is a “dilettante” pretending to be Persian. The two of them argue, until finally Cyrus says he’s tired of AA’s cultlike organization and leaves the coffee shop, vowing never to return to AA.
Active
Themes
