57 pages • 1 hour read
Kalynn BayronThis Poison Heart
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Socio-Historical Context: Medea and Hecate
Within her richly imagined world building, Bayron adapts several figures from Greek mythology, the most notable being Medea, from whom Briseis’s biological family is descended. Medea is a Greek mythological figure who is often portrayed as a sorceress or a witch, and she boasts quite a lofty heritage. She is purported to be the granddaughter of the sun god Helios, the daughter of the King of Colchis, and the niece to the mythological witch Circe, who features in Homer’s Odyssey as a manipulative enchantress. The earliest references to Medea as a mythological figure occur in approximately 700 BCE, when she appears in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts in Hesiod’s Theogony. Various versions of the myth present Medea as a healer, a hypnotist, and a murderer, but she is most well-known from Euripides’ portrayal of her in his famous play Medea, which was first performed in 431 BCE.
In Euripides’ version of the story, Medea is cast in the role of “the woman scorned,” as when her husband, Jason, seeks a different wife, she is driven by vengeance to murder her own children. Other iterations of her character focus on her role as a “helper maiden,” which emphasizes her role in helping Jason to find the fabled Golden Fleece. Given Medea’s controversial actions and associations, her character is often noted for its complexity compared to other prominent female figures in Greek mythology. She is contrastingly framed as a maternal figure, a mother who kills her children, a woman scorned, a devoted lover, a villain, and a divine figure who retains the support of the gods despite her crimes.
Medea is also presented as a worshipper of Hecate, a Greek goddess who is associated with many arcane symbols, including crossroads, night, light, magic, protection from magic, the knowledge of poisonous plants, ghosts, and necromancy. Hecate first appears in literature in Hesiod’s Theogony, and accounts of the origin of her worship vary greatly. Her name is believed to be Greek in origin, and her Roman name is Trivia. She shares key attributes with the huntress Artemis (known as Diana by the Romans), and the two goddesses are closely identified with one another. This connection to “trivia,” which translates to “three ways,” has resulted in representations of Hecate as having three connected bodies or faces. Some accounts frame her as an unmarried, virginal goddess, while others frame her as the mother of Circe, Medea, and the monster Scylla. Within the context of Bayron’s novel, Hecate ironically plays quite a classical role, as just as the gods used to do in the ancient Greek plays, she swoops down at the climactic moment of the story to magically resolve the conflict. Thus, Bayron uses this figure to craft a modern-day version of a literal deus ex machina.
Literary Context: The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden is a novel by British American novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially serialized in The American Magazine from 1910-1911 and was subsequently published as a single volume in 1911. The novel tells the story of 10-year-old Mary Lennox, who was born in British-occupied India to white British parents. When her parents die, she is sent to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven. She soon learns that her uncle’s property contains a secret garden that her uncle has kept locked away since the death of his wife 10 years prior. Mary, who is a rude child, becomes happier and more polite as she befriends various servants on the property during her search for the garden. When she finally finds the garden, she begins tending it. Soon afterward, she learns that she has a cousin named Colin, who has been confined to a hidden bedroom due to a spinal condition that prevents him from walking. Colin, who is ill-tempered after his many years of confinement indoors, grows in strength after visiting the secret garden and eventually learns that he can walk after all. When Archibald returns from his travels to find his son healthy, his own spirits correspondingly improve, and the family lives happily together. It is important to note, however, that the representations of disability in the novel align with the biased Edwardian view of the time that people with disabilities must be inherently unhappy. Also, despite Mary’s nominal position as the protagonist, the novel is frequently framed as supporting traditional gender roles and values, as Colin’s triumph supersedes Mary’s crucial role in helping him to achieve health and happiness. The novel’s conclusion features the reunion of father and son, with Mary relegated to the background.
While This Poison Heart makes use of the same parallels that The Secret Garden draws between the health of the garden and the health of the family, Bayron’s novel rejects many of the sexist assumptions that underlie Hodson’s novel; rather than being thrust into the background as Mary ultimately is, Briseis remains the focal character throughout the unfolding drama of the Colchis family legacy. She alone is the only person who can safely access the deepest recesses of her own secret garden, and she alone holds the magical powers required to bring forth the garden’s greatest assets and remedies. Thus, Bayron embraces the power of setting that The Secret Garden employs while reversing its sexist trends, as This Poison Heart is in many ways an outright celebration of feminine agency and power.
