Previous
Chapter 6
Themes
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
Keady University, 7 Feb 2017. Cyrus tells Zee and their mutual friend Sad James about the fight he just had with Gabe at the coffee shop. Cyrus is so annoyed by what he sees as Gabe’s smugness that he wants to write a whole long book of martyrs, perhaps a poem or a novel about martyrs to prove Gabe wrong. It’s Tuesday night at the Naples café open mic, where Zee and Cyrus have been coming for a while. To Cyrus, it feels like an oasis in the desert of an Indiana college town. Sad James is the host—he calls himself Sad James to distinguish himself from the local DJ called DJ James.
Cyrus’s book of martyrs is a running thread throughout the novel, and it’s noteworthy that it begins here from a place of spite, as Cyrus wants to prove to Gabe and people like him that Cyrus is indeed Iranian, in spite of how Americanized he seems. The irony of course is that the novel also has other moments where people judge Cyrus based on his Iranian appearance, and he instead has to try to convince them that he is a true American.
Themes
Cyrus explains to Zee and Sad James that he has been thinking of writing a poem that would include martyrs from throughout history conversing. A Bob Dylan-style singer named Justine finishes her open mic set and asks Zee for a cigarette. Cyrus misses cigarettes, which he quit about a year after getting sober. Cyrus continues explaining to his friends how even though Roya’s death was totally meaningless, he thinks in a strange way this makes her a martyr too.
Cyrus’s argument for why Roya must be a martyr is a somewhat meandering one, since early death aside, she doesn’t fit any traditional definition of martyrdom. In a roundabout way, his book of martyrs seems to be about making sense of her death and find meaning in it by trying to find a larger context to put it in, a project that may or may not end up being futile.
Themes
Sad James brings up a news story he saw recently about a woman called Orkideh who is dying in public at the Brooklyn Museum for an installation called Death-Speak. Cyrus is curious, particularly after he finds out that Orkideh is Iranian, and he thinks it could be relevant inspiration for his poem. Cyrus remembers the time when he was younger at a restaurant and Ali was trying to explain to him the difference between white, Arab, and Persian. He described Persians as “uglier,” but Cyrus thinks Ali seemed pleased with this ugliness. Now, Cyrus thinks he can see some of that “ugliness” in Orkideh, even though she is physically beautiful.
While Gabe sees Cyrus as fully American, Sad James makes an immediate connection between Orkideh and Cyrus because they’re both Iranian, showing how, in other contexts, Cyrus does indeed come across as Iranian. Ali’s comments about ugliness could suggest low self-esteem, but they instead seem to suggest pride, a sense in Ali and people like him that the supposed ugliness of Persians is a sign of their authenticity.
Themes
Sad James suggests that Cyrus should write to Orkideh, whose name means “orchid” in Farsi. Zee says Cyrus should just go to the museum itself to meet her. To Cyrus, the idea of just suddenly flying to New York seems preposterous. Zee insists that spontaneously flying to New York is exactly the type of thing a writer would do. Cyrus realizes he still has some money from the $150,000 that the U.S. government paid him after his mother’s death on Flight 655, which he jokingly refers to as her “bounty.” Sad James wonders if Orkideh is refusing treatment for her cancer to avoid medical debt.
A bounty can be reward money paid for killing someone, often a criminal or outlaw. By calling the U.S. government’s restitution money a bounty, Cyrus is joking about how the U.S. government confused Flight 655 with a military target—that the government treated his mother like a dangerous person who would have a bounty on her head. Cyrus’s dark humor about one of the formative tragedies of his life shows how he copes with humor, while also suggesting that perhaps this humor is a way for him to avoid thinking too much about darker truths.
Themes
Get the entire Martyr! LitChart as a printable PDF.
Zee offers to go to New York with Cyrus for a weekend and split a hotel. They decide to go that very weekend—Orkideh is dying, after all.
Cyrus’s decision to go see Orkideh represents him taking a newly active role in his life, perhaps even connecting with his Iranian past by meeting fellow Iranian Orkideh.
Themes
