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Chapter 12
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
One day on the farm, the boys wake up and discover that the water’s not running: the well has been drained. Crickson blames Tommy, but really, it’s Fast Forward’s fault—he left the hose running after washing his truck. But Fast Forward just watches on and then leaves the house when Crickson punishes Tommy, striking him 20 times with a broken hose. Demon is amazed that Tommy doesn’t rat out Fast Forward to try and save himself. Demon thinks that’s maybe what he would have done.
Here, Demon gets his first hint that Fast Forward might not be the hero that Demon first imagined him to be. Instead of taking responsibility for leaving the hose on, Fast Forward lets Tommy take the blame, even when Crickson violently beats Tommy in response. Many of the villains throughout the novel commit similarly selfish acts, harming other community members for their own benefit.
Themes
While Mom recovers from the overdose, Demon gets weekly visits with her. Stoner isn’t around for the visits, and Mom complains that he’s not supportive of her having the baby. On the farm, Crickson keeps working Demon and the boys hard and never feeds them quite enough. Demon lives for Friday nights when they’ll all drive in Crickson’s truck to the stadium to watch Fast Forward, who plays quarterback. In September and October, they tend to tobacco on the farm, which is the hardest work they do. One day, Demon sees Tommy gathering the pink flowers that they’re supposed to leave behind while topping tobacco. Tommy then sets the flowers on two mounds at the edge of the field. He’s made graves for his parents. He never got to bury them, so he makes set of graves for them in every new foster home he’s sent to.
Topping tobacco entails removing the small pink flowers or buds from the top of tobacco plants to stimulate growth in the plant’s remaining leaves. The tobacco industry is one of the most historically predatory industries in the United States, a fact that Crickson’s use of child labor emphasizes. Still, Tommy uses the tobacco flowers to memorialize his parents, showing the novel’s contention that one can find or create beauty and care in even the worst circumstances.
Themes
