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Chapter 15
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 could spend the rest of his life wondering if Mom’s death was a suicide or accident. Everyone else seems convinced that she planned it. Demon thinks nothing is right about the funeral. First of all, it’s in a church, something Mom never liked. When he goes up to see Mom in the casket, he realizes that his brother is in there with her. He rides in a limo to the burial, and the whole time, the limo driver, a high schooler, flirts with the girl riding up front with him. “There’s no kind of sad in the world that will stop it turning,” Demon thinks. He spends the weekend with the Peggots. Soon, they’ll clean the trailer they rented to Mom, erasing even the lines that show Demon a hair taller than Mom. “Her life left no marks on a thing,” Demon thinks.
Two things strike Demon about his mother’s death. First, he wants to know whether her overdose was intentional or accidental. Though everyone else thinks she died by suicide, Demon doesn’t want to believe that his mother intentionally abandoned him. Second, Demon notes how little his mother’s death has affected others. Community members, like the limo driver, go on with their lives as if nothing has happened. Demon’s newfound understanding of Mom’s isolation from any kind of community is arguably part of what spurs Demon’s drive to find belonging from that point forth.
Themes
