Why ‘Martyr’ the bride?
Wednesday, October 8 2025 4:44PM
My in-progress graphic novel (or comic series, I use both interchangeably, though ‘comic’ is not technically correct) Martyr the Bride got its start as a short story I penned in a legal pad in mid 2022, called The Creature and The Coward. I have not released TCATC since much of the core theme and plot make up the meat of Martyr, but I plan to publish it as part of a collection of short stories and essays at some point. One thing at a time!
The Creature and the Coward is a first-person narrative that follows a guilt-riddled young woman’s thoughts as she crashes her car and stumbles out to the edge of a cliff that overlooks sharp rocks and water. In the sky she sees the eye of two separate storms forming, each with a larger than life entity appearing in the middle - one a creature, and one a coward. She must choose which of these two possibilities to embrace, and instead of doing so, she leaps to her death, with the irony being that the cowardly way out actually transformed her into the creature. She became both. Through long-winded monologuing, the unnamed protagonist reveals that she is a young and lovelorn wife to a man that pays her little attention, and how desperation lead to her having a steamy affair with an irresistible lover. Her morals and religious upbringing cause extreme guilt and identity crisis, which is worsened by taken substances. The story is one of multiple lovers, remorse and finally redemption.
Martyr carries the spirit of this story. It follows Chase Grayson as she navigates a new job at mental health clinic, her marriage to a man who shows her little interest, her affair with a new coworker, and her increasingly disturbing hallucinations that disrupt her thoughts. Chase, whose real name is Chasity, has always dreamed of taking her poetry and song writing and being the vocalist of a rock band. Her pious family disliked her love of ‘secular’ music, and it isn’t until her life starts to fall apart that she meets the right people to form a band with - a band named Martyr the Bride.
I chose the title because, to be frank, it sounds cool as hell. It sounds like a rock or metal band I would listen to, fitting in with acts like ‘In This Moment’.
It’s more than just Chase’s band name though. The word martyr means a person who voluntarily suffers death, according to Merriam-Webster:
“1. : a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion. 2. : a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle. a martyr to the cause of freedom.”
Chase experiences a spiritual death, and the death of the life and love she once knew. The title also refers to my own personal belief that marriage under patriarchal standards subjugates women to the whims of their husbands, often to their detriment. It is a nod to the immense sacrifice women make to become dutiful wives - everything from forgoing career opportunities (which I’ve done in my marriage) to relocating far away from family, and to enduring the pain of childbirth and overall loss of independence.
I should be clear that this story is not ‘man-hating’, nor is it anti-marriage. It is however, a very raw and honest look at marriage through the eyes of many women across all time periods and cultures.
Martyr the Bride is a ‘coming of age’ story, but not for teenagers- like with most YA fiction.
This is the story of a late bloomer who was told she could never be anything great, and taking agency of her own destiny.