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Chapter 2
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
Cyrus has never understood why his body needs sleep. He thinks of how people pretend to be asleep until they actually do fall asleep. He prefers being asleep to being awake, although he’s been a terrible sleeper ever since he was young. In fact, his sleeping was so bad that his father, Ali, who raised Cyrus alone after the death of Cyrus’s mother (Roya), used to wonder if Cyrus had a disability. At the time, they lived in Tehran, and Roya died on a trip to visit her brother in Dubai when her commercial plane, Iran Air Flight 655, was destroyed by a U.S. Navy warship. There were 66 children who died on the flight, and it would have been 67 if Roya hadn’t convinced Ali that Cyrus was too young to fly at the time.
The concept of pretending to be asleep until one is actually asleep resonates in Cyrus’s own life, as he often feels like he has to pretend to be a certain type of person. His whole job as a medical actor is based on pretending. On another note, Cyrus struggles to understand why he lived but Roya didn’t—an outcome that seems random and at odds with his desire for God to be able to speak to him and to have a plan.
Active
Themes
Cyrus’s birth happened so quickly and abruptly that the doctor wasn’t even in the room when Roya gave birth. He seemed so calm after birth that Roya and Ali agreed he was like a little king and named him Cyrus.
While Cyrus’s life is difficult now, as a child, he was calm. Part of Cyrus’s desire to get more in touch with his Iranian heritage could be a desire to get back some of the peace that he supposedly had as a baby.
Active
Themes
After Roya’s death, Ali started to want out of Tehran. He struggled with the responsibility of raising Cyrus alone. One day, he saw an advertisement from a big U.S. chicken company looking for workers. He sold everything and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. On the flight over, neither Ali nor Cyrus slept.
