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Chapter 11
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
Mom gets out of rehab and comes home. Supervised visits with Demon now happen in their kitchen instead of a McDonald’s. Miss Barks is still there, though, to tell them when their time is up. Eventually, Demon gets to spend a whole Saturday with Mom. On that day, she tells Demon she’s pregnant. “Holy Jesus,” Demon thinks. For the rest of the day, they rake piles of leaves to jump in them and then play music and dance. Mom says Stoner isn’t happy about her being pregnant. When Stoner comes home, Mom tells him Demon’s happy about the new baby. She says if it’s a boy, they’ll be inseparable. Stoner uses a racial slur and says that the baby won’t be biracial, like Demon. “My dad was Melungeon,” Demon says. Stoner tells Demon again that he can’t see Maggot, even though Miss Barks has said it’s okay for him to see the Peggots.
Stoner shows that he is not only misogynistic and homophobic but also profoundly racist. “Melungeon” refers to a group of people, usually, from Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, who have European, African, and Native American ancestry. The term Melungeon, which comes from the French “to mix,” first appeared in the early nineteenth century and was used in a derogatory way. Over time, as the novel points out, people have begun to reclaim the word, using it with a sense of pride, as Demon does here.
Themes
