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Chapter 57
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
Hammer wants to go to Devil’s Bathtub to confront Fast Forward. From Demon’s perspective, Hammer’s reason for wanting to confront Fast Forward is straightforward: Fast Forward stole Emmy from him and then treated her badly. Maggot and Hammer are both on meth. Hammer takes his rifle with him when they leave the car. Hammer and Maggot get ahead of Demon on the trail because his knee slows him down. He passes two people on the trail who say Fast Forward is still up at the waterfall with Big Bear Howe. When Demon gets to the waterfall, he finds Hammer screaming at Fast Forward that he wasn’t fit to touch a hair on Emmy’s head. Fast Forward is standing on a cliff above them, naked.
Several of the novel’s primary themes come to a head during this scene. Hammer is on meth, which Maggot, who is addicted to drugs, gave to him. Demon has lost hope in the world because he has lost the people closest to him to drug addiction. He is also trying to support his surrogate family and community, the Peggots, but is doing so in a way that seems like it will only lead to destruction. And the conflict between Hammer and Fast Forward seems rooted in toxic masculinity, in Fast Forward’s misogynistic treatment of women, including Emmy, and in Hammer’s jealous and protective response, which leads him to violence.
Themes
Demon tries to get Hammer to calm down, but Hammer swings his rifle around to his shoulder. Big Bear yells at Fast Forward to get down because Hammer is going to shoot. Fast Forward tries to dive off the cliff but seems to slip. The contact sounds like “a watermelon on pavement.” Hammer yells at Demon that he wasn’t going to shoot Fast Forward; he was going to lay down his rifle. He says he won’t let anyone die and jumps into the water to swim to Fast Forward’s body. The water is rising, though, and sweeps Hammer away. Big Bear and Maggot run to get help. Demon can barely walk, so he stays behind. After they’re gone, he kicks Hammer’s rifle into the water. He then finds Hammer’s body and drags it onto a rock close to Fast Forward’s.
Hammer’s decision to jump in the water to try and save Fast Forward seems to prove that he’s telling the truth when he says he didn’t plan to shoot Fast Forward. Fast Forward’s death, then, seems like a horrible accident, and Hammer dies trying to fix that accident. The novel shows, then, how addiction, toxic masculinity, exploitation, and a desire to belong combine to lead to this ultimate moment of destruction. Demon is left, then, to literally and figuratively pick up the pieces that this moment of destruction has left in its wake.
Themes
