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 thinks Fast Forward might be able to help Maggot, so he invites Fast Forward to June and Emmy’s Fourth of July Party. Fast Forward picks Demon up. Rose and a woman named Mouse are already in the truck. They then pick up Maggot. Maggot has dyed black bangs, neon mesh sleeves, and wide-legged black pants with chains on the legs. Maggot seems twitchy. Demon knows that he’s been stealing Sudafed from drugstores to sell to “cookers,” and Demon imagines that they pay Maggot with their product.
Demon puts his faith in Fast Forward, introducing him to one of his closest friends, Maggot, and to his surrogate family, the Peggots. That decision reveals Demon’s difficulty in judging character. He trusts people he probably shouldn’t, like Fast Forward, but remains skeptical of people who seem to have his best interests at heart, like Coach. The novel also continues to show here how addiction impacts almost every member of Demon’s community in one way or another.
Themes
At the party, Demon learns that Emmy is going out with Hammer, Maggot’s cousin. Demon sees Mouse and Fast Forward leading a group of people away from the party to a small, broken-down cabin and then sees them passing out “small black disks” from a Pringles can. Demon has a bad feeling about it. When he goes up to the cabin later, he finds people passed out with needles and kits. Fast Forward and Mouse are nowhere to be seen.
The novel reveals that Fast Forward is a heroin dealer and contrasts his business with the pharmaceutical industry. By describing the people as they appear after injecting heroin, the novel presents a comparison between the pharmaceutical industry, with its legal opioid painkillers, and drug dealers with the illegal opioid, heroin, suggesting that the two are more similar than they may at first appear.
Themes
