How does The Broken Column elucidate its Kahlo as a martyr?
One can draw a parallel from Kahlo’s portrayal of herself to that of the “Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.”  In Sebastian's legend, he was discovered to be a Christian and tied to a tree and used as an archery target. Despite being left for dead he survives, only to later perish for his religion by the hands of the Imperial Roman. He is often portrayed tied to a tree, body littered with arrows. The American poet Bruce Bond writes, “pain is an arrow that pins a body to the bone” in a 2013 poem named after the Saint.  Frida aligns herself with the martyr visually, and being raised in a Catholic home she would have been familiar with the patron saint of soldiers.
Desmond O’Neill, a physician writing for the British Medical Journal, describes Frida’s work as a vital tool in the understanding of pain in patients. The doctor commends Frida’s ability to portray the intangible feeling of chronic pain.  In this way she becomes a martyr for those plagued by chronic pain. In her willingness to bare her soul to the viewer allows for a greater understanding of what it means to live with constant and intense pain. Though pain is all around us we lack the ability to “grasp or express it,” Frida Kahlo is the exception to the problem of portraying pain.
Frida Kahlo Saint Sebastian British Medical Journal