57 pages • 1 hour read
This Poison Heart
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Expansive Definitions of Family
Briseis’s journey to Rhinebeck with her moms inherently combines questions of family and kinship making for adoptees, as she lives in a house previously owned by her birth family, and both she and her adoptive mothers must come to terms with the legacy that she inherited from that family. In the beginning of the novel, Briseis takes a relatively straightforward approach to the realities of her adoption. She has always known that she was adopted and has little curiosity about her birth family despite her difficulties with controlling her magical affinity for plants. She is extremely close with Thandie and Angie and considers her bond with them to be the central relationship in her life. Although the arrival of Mrs. Redmond and the announcement that Briseis has allegedly inherited a house from her birth aunt, Circe Colchis, brings questions of Briseis’s biological family to the fore, her initial motivation in moving to Rhinebeck is to provide for her family members—Thandie and Angie—who are struggling financially.
Once she arrives in Rhinebeck, however, Briseis is compelled to modify her definition of family as she faces representations of the women in her birth family and finds herself struck by the physical resemblance between herself and them. Though this does not alter her connection toward her moms, the jarring experience of exploring the Colchis family heirlooms makes her birth family feel more real, and this inner adjustment inspires her to learn more. Initially, Briseis feels guilty for this desire, worrying that her moms will interpret her new curiosity as a slight against them. In this way, the author uses her narrative to address larger concerns that are common to many adoptees. When Angie reassures Briseis that her curiosity is natural and does not damage her bond with her moms, the author intends to send this same message of reassurance to any readers who might be adoptees themselves.
As the events of the novel unfold, Briseis learns to find a new balance between maintaining her relationship with her moms and opening herself up to new connections with the Colchis family history. As she gradually learns that her power over plants comes from a centuries-long generational ability to manipulate poisons, she finds new ways to incorporate this knowledge into her sense of identity without relinquishing any aspects of her upbringing thus far. Significantly, the novel does not suggest that a birth family must have no influence over an adoptee’s sense of identity; instead, the narrative strikes a fine balance between embracing both definitions of family given that the adoptive family situation is, like Briseis’s, a happy one with strong ties. Nor does the novel suggest that a birth family has the power to supplant the loving ties of an adoptive family. On the contrary, Bayron deliberately presents the notion of family as expansive: something that can include multiple emotional connections, whether or not these connections are influenced by biology. Indeed, the novel suggests that the strongest bonds will be those that reject jealousy and allow for open kinship making, thus putting the well-being of the adopted child ahead of any possessiveness on the part of the parents, whether adoptive or biological.
Embracing Hidden Talents
Briseis’s journey toward accepting her powers as a beneficial attribute rather than a burdensome secret occupies much of her emotional journey throughout the novel. As such, This Poison Heart takes on some of the qualities of the bildungsroman, a genre in which the protagonist undergoes significant changes while coming of age and acquiring a new sense of maturity or worldliness. In Briseis’s case, this process requires her to redefine her powers as a gift to be shared rather than a curse to be hidden.
In the novel’s early chapters, Briseis resists using her powers, and this instinctive urge to suppress her abilities ironically results in more difficulties than if she had simply embraced her power openly. For example, she limits herself to cityscapes that lack green spaces and ignores the nagging sense that she is shortchanging the plants she encounters—and herself—by doing so. She cites that, while she has always had her powers, they have grown stronger since she reached puberty, and she is frightened by this increased manifestation of attributes that she would rather keep hidden. This dynamic draws upon a common trope in YA fantasy that correlates the sudden unruliness of one’s magical powers with the unruliness of the body as it goes through the dramatic physical changes that occur during puberty. Her powers thus emerge as a metaphor for her changing self; likewise, denying her powers is the same as denying part of her identity. As these powers originate from her birth family, this denial connects to her growing realization that she can love both her adopted family and her biological family without one relationship compromising the other.
Indeed, Briseis gradually learns that the more she accepts and embraces her powers, the more she can work with and control them. In the beginning of the novel, she finds that using her powers, which she rarely does, leaves her dizzy and unwell. This contributes to her anxiety about moving to Rhinebeck, where exposure to plants will be inevitable. To her astonishment, however, using her power more frequently leads to greater facility with them. As she states, “I was also stunned that my own resistance to this power—worrying so much, trying to control it—seemed to be the thing that caused the dizziness and exhaustion I always felt after bringing flowers to bloom. There was none of that now” (149). When she finally opens herself to her magical powers, Briseis stops resisting this part of herself and instead incorporates it into her identity. It is only when she embraces herself in her entirety that she is able to fully flourish into her best self.
The Burden of Secrets
This Poison Heart examines the challenges that come with having unusual superpowers, including the burden of keeping those powers a secret. In the early chapters of the novel, Briseis’s life is cluttered with complications that arise from her efforts to conceal her magical talents. For example, her desire to hide her powers has led her to change schools, and this decision has adversely affected her academic performance. Similarly, her half-hearted attempt to reveal the existence of her powers to Gabby has caused their friendship to sour. Faced with this implicit rejection for an essential part of herself, Briseis feels a compelling urge to maintain as much secrecy as possible around her talents. Ironically, in trying to establish total, constant control over her abilities, she finds that the plants around her rebel against this mindset and instead visibly flourish in response to her surges of emotion. She thinks, “The fear that I carried around with me that someone would discover what I could do—or worse, that I’d lose control and hurt someone—was heavy” (20). The desire to keep her secret wars with her desire to be seen for her whole self, and this struggle leaves Briseis in a state of perpetual internal conflict.
Briseis finds some relief when she moves to Rhinebeck, where the notoriety of the Colchis women among the magical practitioners of the town means that Briseis’s powers are implicitly known to many of the townsfolk. Even though many of these practitioners treat her abilities as more of an open secret than something that is easy to discuss, this easing of the strict need to hide allows Briseis to grow braver with her powers and experiment with new ways to accept them more fully. Even so, as she learns more about the Colchis family, she finds herself keeping new secrets from her moms, and this development leads her back to the metaphor of secrets as a physical weight. She considers, “The secrets were piling up, and they were starting to feel heavy” (254). When she finally tells her moms everything, Briseis feels this burden lift once more and wishes she had been honest sooner.
However, the novel is not entirely in favor of revealing one’s secrets wholly and to all parties. When Briseis decides to show Marie and Karter the Absyrtus Heart, Marie protests. However, Briseis counters, “Keeping it a secret doesn’t keep me safe. You saw that yourself” (296). Briseis’s point is supported by the text; Circe, Selene, and other generations of Colchis women kept the Absyrtus Heart a secret and still became victims of violence. However, her decision to show Karter the Absyrtus Heart proves disastrous, as he reports the finding to his duplicitous mother. This disclosure sets in motion a chain of events that ultimately cause Thandie’s death. The novel therefore does not suggest that secrets should unilaterally be kept or revealed. Instead, the narrative advocates for being open with trusted confidantes—even as it cautions against trusting too freely.
Unlock all 57 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
