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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Demon Copperhead, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Exploitation
Class, Social Hierarchy, and Stereotypes
Pain and Addiction
Toxic Masculinity
Community and Belonging
Summary
Analysis
Demon thinks he’s at least halfway in love with Miss Barks. She tells him that he won’t be able to go back and live with Mom after three weeks. First, Mom will have to go back to her old life and take regular drug tests. Once she’s on more solid footing, they can talk about Demon going back to live with her. When Demon asks about Stoner, Miss Barks says he and Demon will have to “learn to get along better.” In the meantime, Demon and Mom will have supervised visits.
The novel presents Mom’s path of recovery after the overdose as long and arduous. Notably, when Demon asks about Stoner, Miss Barks says that the two of them will need to “learn to get along better.” Miss Barks’s phrase places at least half of the responsibility on Demon instead of identifying Stoner as an abusive person who shouldn’t be allowed near children, underscoring the pattern of negligence and indifference of Miss Barks and the social services industry.
Themes
Fast Forward plays favorites with Demon. He looks at Demon’s drawings like they’re real comic books and asks Demon to draw him as a superhero. Demon draws him as “Force Fastward, a.k.a. Fast Man.” His superpower is his force of will, which can “make anybody do anything and feel glad of it” because they all want to be on the same side as Fast Man. When Fast Forward looks at the drawing, he says Demon has real talent that can’t be taught. To Demon, that makes his whole “dogshit” life up to that point worth it. Demon draws Creaky—what the boys call Crickson—as the villain Creak Evil. He also draws the boys as superheroes using the nicknames Fast Forward has given each of them. Swap-Out is WildMan, who can climb anything, and Tommy is SuperBones, who can instantly mend people’s bones.
When Demon faces difficulty, he again turns to comics and art to try and find hope. The novel portrays the relationship that Demon’s comics and his superheroes bear to his real, lived experiences. He identifies and arguably exaggerates the best qualities of the people to whom he is closest in order to transform them into heroes while focusing on the negative qualities of his antagonists in order to make them into villains. The novel itself is involved in a similar interplay; Kingsolver identifies heroes and villains in the story she wants to tell, and while the novel adds depth and nuance to each character, it is also not shy about identifying its heroes and villains. In that way, the novel presents a commentary on good and evil and heroes and villains, portraying underdogs like Demon as the true heroes and powerful industries and institutions as villains.
Themes
Demon thinks the supervised visits with Mom are weird. Usually they’ll meet at McDonald’s with Miss Barks pretending to read while she discreetly keeps tabs on them. Mom says Stoner is paying for her rehab, and that Demon is her motivation for getting sober. That makes Demon nervous because, if she fails, he thinks it will mean he’s not a good enough motivation for sobriety—and he thinks this is a lot of pressure. Mom tells Demon that Stoner has visited her in rehab three times already, the maximum number of visitations allowed. He also brought her a new dress and a card. She says they’re going to be a better family from now on. When Demon tells her about Mr. Crickson and the mice, cockroaches, and forced labor on the farm, Mom starts to cry. Demon thinks it’s a trap to feel sorry for her, though.
Mom says that Demon is the reason she wants to be sober. While the statement may be well-intentioned and certainly seems to be true, it also puts an enormous burden on Demon and raises the specter of a terrifying possibility: if Mom fails to get sober, it would be Demon’s fault. Notably, Mom tells Demon that Stoner is paying for rehab. While that economic arrangement could show Stoner in a positive light, it seems more likely that paying for Mom’s rehab is another way that he exercises power over her and, by extension, over Demon.
Themes
The Saturday after Demon’s visit with Mom, the Peggots visit him on the farm. They’d found out where he lived from the school bus driver, bypassing DSS entirely. Demon shows Mrs. Peggot and Maggot the house while Mr. Peggot talks to Crickson. The house’s condition upsets Mrs. Peggot. She asks Demon where Crickson keeps the Lysol. When Fast Forward pulls up, he charms the Peggots like he charms everyone else. Demon feels bad because he catches himself seeing the Peggots through Fast Forward’s eyes and wondering if he’ll see Mr. and Mrs. Peggot as a “couple of old bumpkins,” and Maggot as a boy who is “a little bit odd.”
Through Fast Forward’s eyes, Demon sees the Peggots in an unflattering light. That change of perspective shows just how mutable Demon’s own thinking and behavior is at this point in his life. While the Peggots show him as much, if not more, care and kindness than any other people in his life, he slips into viewing them in a stereotyped, prejudicial way when they meet Fast Forward, whom he wants to impress.
Themes
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