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Chapter 42
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
Dori and Demon plan to see each other again next Saturday. When Saturday comes, though, Maggot calls Demon and tells him Mr. Peggot isn’t okay. June picks Demon up to take him to the Peggots. Maggot is in the car with her, but Emmy isn’t. June says Emmy thinks the rules don’t apply to her and that Maggot has been staying at their house for the past few weeks. No one elaborates further. When they arrive, the Peggots’ house is filled with family.
While Demon is going through his own struggles, the Peggots are facing their own challenges. Notably, both Maggot and Emmy are no longer living with their own guardians, showing that while Demon’s struggles with housing insecurity are significant, they aren’t necessarily unique.
Themes
Maggot disappears, and Demon finds him at the creek where they used to play together. Before Demon knows what’s happening, Maggot is crying. Demon is afraid to touch him. He thinks of when he and Maggot used to go fishing with Mr. Peggot. Now, he’s watching Maggot cry “with no idea what powers existed to save him.” That night, Mr. Peggot passes away. Maggot never goes to see him to say goodbye. Instead, he and Demon stay at the creek until the moon disappears. Maggot says he has been living at June’s because he and Mr. Peggot had a fight. Demon thinks he would have tried harder to get Maggot to go see Mr. Peggot that night if he had known it would be his last chance.
Demon and Maggot return, both figuratively and literally, to the site of their childhood adventures together. This emphasizes how much their lives have changed over the years. The carefree existence of their childhoods has been replaced by housing insecurity and drug addiction. And even the relationships that once seemed foundational, like Maggot’s relationship with Mr. Peggot, have been shaken to the point that Maggot doesn’t even visit Mr. Peggot when he is on his deathbed.
Themes
Dori and Demon go to Mr. Peggot’s funeral together. The church is filled with people from the community. Even Stoner is there. Demon doesn’t talk to him. Maggot is wearing a suit and tie. Demon feels proud to sit with the family during the funeral: it makes him feel like somebody of worth. Afterward, Demon and Maggot go outside to smoke weed. They hear a fight break out and walk around the corner of the funeral home to see Rose Dartell grabbing Emmy’s hair. Demon separates them, and they both leave before Demon can talk to either of them. Demon asks Maggot what’s going on. Maggot tells him that Emmy broke up with Hammer and has started dating Fast Forward. Rose must have seen them and gotten angry.
Demon feels proud and like a person of worth when the Peggot family invites him to sit with them at the funeral. That feeling clarifies why family, community, and belonging are so important for Demon: without those things, he feels worthless. Demon faces obstacles in finding that belonging, though, because he doesn’t always choose the right people to trust. That seems to be the case with Fast Forward, whose actions lead Rose and Emmy to get into a physical fight.
Themes
