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Chapter 25
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’s grandmother doesn’t want anything to do with men or boys. Betsy says she raised 11 girls total, and many of the girls she took in were the babies of teenage mothers. But Betsy says she never took money, unlike the foster parents Demon knows. Demon thinks that his mom’s story was true then—that Betsy showed up before he was born, ready to take him in if he was a girl. Demon tells her how and why he ended up looking for her. They sit listening to the clocks until Betsy says he should meet her little brother Dick.
Betsy is quick to clarify that she raises the girls she takes in outside of the DSS or foster-care systems. In Betsy’s mind—and as Demon’s experiences show—the social service institutions are hopelessly corrupt and ineffective. Betsy’s ethos makes it clear that she believes you shouldn’t try and help people for the money but because it’s the right thing to do, establishing her as the antithesis to the various institutions and industries that aim to exploit people throughout the novel.
Themes
Brother Dick, Demon soon discovers, is in a wheelchair. Demon thinks that he is “little and crooked and pigeon-boned.” Betsy asks Dick what they should do about Demon, and Dick says he needs a bath and new shoes. Jane Ellen, the eleventh of Betsy’s 11 girls, brings clothes and shoes over for Demon. The four of them share dinner before Betsy shows Demon to his room.
While Betsy, Dick, and Jane Ellen don’t know Demon—and Betsy has a policy against taking in boys—they welcome Demon warmly, providing him the shelter, food, and community that he has so desperately needed.
Themes
