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Chapter 8
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
Brooklyn Museum, Day 1. Cyrus has made it to the Brooklyn Museum and is talking to Orkideh. He tries to explain to her his job where he acts out having diseases and dying, but he struggles to do so. Orkideh tells him to slow down. She asks his name and, after hearing it, tells him that Cyrus Shams is a very princely name. He says that he’s 28, about to be 29, and she says that she is 54.
Orkideh’s art installation is the real-life version of Cyrus’s hospital job. While he does a performance of a dying person, she uses her actual death as a form of performance. Although Cyrus struggles to express himself to Orkideh, she seems to understand exactly what he’s trying to say, showing how they have things in common.
Themes
Orkideh asks Cyrus if he’s ever afraid of becoming a cliché—another Iranian man obsessed with death. Cyrus admits that he didn’t know about how fervently people honor martyrs in Iran until recently. Orkideh is incredulous when Cyrus implies that he himself might want to be a martyr, perhaps as the last entry of his book of martyrs. He insists his interest in martyrdom has nothing to do with Islam. Orkideh helps Cyrus understand that what he's really obsessed with is “earth martyrs,” who die for some cause on earth instead of for a god or an afterlife.
The concept of “earth martyrs” is important in the novel. Part of the whole reason for Cyrus’s book of martyrs project is that he has become disillusioned with Gabe and AA, which emphasizes a higher power. The concept of earth martyrs gives Cyrus a way to pursue his interest in martyrs without having to consider a higher power or other religious considerations.
Themes
Orkideh notices Cyrus sweating, and he says he’s nervous because he’s decided he wants to write about Orkideh. Orkideh just reacts by coughing into her handkerchief. She says it was very lucky they met today, and she insists that Cyrus come back the next day. He leaves, thinking more about earth martyrs, liking the concept at first, then starting to dislike it without understanding why.
Cyrus’s ambivalent feelings toward earth martyrs in this passage show how he is still looking for meaning and trying to find the ideas that resonate with him. It perhaps also reflects the uncertainty that he feels toward Orkideh, who intrigues him but who also seems to be keeping him at a distance.
Themes
