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Chapter 30
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, Mrs. Peggot calls Demon at Coach’s house, and they arrange for Demon to go to the Peggots to see Mr. Peggot, Mrs. Peggot, and Maggot. When Demon arrives on a Saturday after football practice, the Peggots gather around him like he had “come back from the moon.” Maggot looks different: he wears makeup around his eyes and has two rings in his bottom lip. They talk about Jonesville and Coach, and they ask why Betsy only started taking an interest in him now. Demon says she hadn’t been interested in him before because she didn’t know he existed. But Mrs. Peg reveals that this isn’t true: Betsy has known about him all along.
Demon continues his quest to find family, community, and belonging. At this point, he has found partial belonging with Betsy and Dick, with Coach and Angus, and with the Peggots. In a way, the novel hints that Demon might already have everything he’s looking for. But, the novel argues, he will not be able to recognize that or truly feel the sense of belonging he’s looking for until he directly addresses his past trauma and the resulting pain. Until he does that, the novel suggests, Demon will always be running from something, even if he feels mostly at peace with his life. In other words, he will be surviving, not thriving.
Themes
After that, Demon finally gets the true story of Betsy coming to visit his mother. Mrs. Peggot says Betsy didn’t visit on the day of Demon’s birth, like Mom said, but a few weeks before. She came and wanted to “take away the baby.” Mom refused. Demon thinks his mom had good reason, then, for not wanting Demon to be connected to his dad’s side of the family, because she was afraid Betsy might still try to take him away. Maggot tells Demon that his mom will be in prison for longer because her parole was denied. He also says that Emmy has a boyfriend. June and Emmy have moved closer to home now that June is working at the Pennington Gap clinic as a nurse practitioner. Demon goes to see their home, which Mr. Peggot describes as a “geometric dome.”
When Mom told Demon about his grandmother, Betsy, coming and trying to take him away, she said that Betsy came the day he was born. Demon had thought Mom invented the story to obscure the fact that she was passed out from drugs while she gave birth to Demon. Demon could have been right in the sense that Mom may have changed the timeline of the story out of shame. But the revelation Mrs. Peggot shares with Demon complicates that theory. Knowing the truth of the story makes Demon understand why Mom never wanted him to know anything about his dad’s side of the family. Mom was concerned, Demon thinks, that if Demon tried to make a connection with Betsy, Betsy might try and take him away again. Though Demon isn’t entirely sure what to make of the story, it does seem to show how fiercely Mom loved him, making it clear that, unlike what Mrs. Peggot’s story may have implied, he wasn’t an accident or someone his mother didn’t care about. Instead, she cared about him deeply, if also imperfectly.
Themes
At June and Emmy’s house, Emmy takes Maggot and Demon to her room and tells them “her secrets, just like old times.” After Maggot prods her, Emmy says she and Hammer aren’t dating. They’re just friends. She doesn’t seem to remember kissing Demon, but she’s still wearing the bracelet he gave her around her ankle. Emmy says she hates June’s boyfriend, Kent, a pharmaceutical rep who never seems to stop talking. Maggot puts on some of Emmy’s clothing. When Mrs. Peggot calls up that it’s time to leave, Emmy and Demon stall for long enough for Maggot to change back into his own clothes.
This passage shows again that while Demon is flawed, he also deeply cares about his friends and consistently shows up for them and protects them. For example, Emmy still wears the bracelet he gave her when they were just children, and when Maggot dresses in Emmy’s clothes, he and Emmy work together to ensure that Mrs. Peggot won’t find out, protecting Maggot from the kind of judgment and prejudice they fear would come from Mr. and Mrs. Peggot.
Themes
