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Chapter 21
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 afternoon, Miss Barks picks Demon up and says she has good news. On the drive, Demon has so much fun that he doesn’t even worry what Ghost will say about him missing work. Miss Barks tells Demon he will start receiving social security checks and will get a percentage of what Mom made at Walmart every month until he’s 18. The money will go into an account he'll be able to access after he ages out of foster care. Miss Barks then takes him to dinner at a restaurant where she tells him some bad news: she’s leaving DSS. She’s saved up enough to pursue her teaching degree full time. Back at the McCobbs’, Demon punches the washing machine until his hands bleed.
One by one, the people who care about Demon seem to disappear from his life. While Miss Barks hasn’t secured Demon good home placements, she has ensured that he will receive the social security money allotted to him. Once she helps him secure his money, though, she tells Demon that she’s leaving DSS and will no longer be Demon’s case manager, repeating a pattern of abandonment that has characterized Demon’s life. Notably, Demon’s responds to the devastating news with anger. In a way, he seems to feel anger instead of other emotions, a signal that Demon has begun to internalize lessons of toxic masculinity, including the idea that emotions other than anger indicate weakness.
Themes
