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Chapter 8
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
Crickson is a “meaty guy with a red face and greasy combover.” He talks in a whisper like Freddy Krueger. Miss Barks runs through her list of preliminary questions with him, clearly frightened, before handing him a yellow envelope. Crickson asks if his check is in there. She says they’ll send it in the mail like they always do. When Mis Barks leaves, Crickson tells Demon that the other boys won’t like a biter and that he's told them about what Demon did to Stoner. “A wonder no one’s filed off your teeth,” he says.
The novel portrays Crickson as a terrifying man right off the bat. Additionally, it becomes clear that he is primarily interested in taking in foster children for economic gain, not because he cares about his foster children. While it may be tempting to identify Crickson as the villain in this scenario, or as the only villain, Miss Barks clearly knows something is wrong and doesn’t do anything about it, implicating not just herself in Crickson’s wrongdoing but also DSS and the foster care system in general. This suggests the power that institutions have over all people, even those with good intentions.
Themes
Demon thinks he might as well have a sign around his neck: “Druggie Mom, Queer Best Friend, Hand Biter.” Whatever Crickson told the other boys will surely spread all over school. Crickson takes him out for a day’s work, starting with feeding the cattle. After school lets out, two boys, Tommy Waddell and Swap-Out, come to the house. Tommy says they knew another boy would be coming because Crickson has to pay a big tax bill every April and September. When the bill is due, he needs the farm to bring in more money, so he gets another boy to come and work. Tommy is nice to Demon, despite Demon’s fear that the boys would label him a biter. Tommy is sweet to the cows, too, which are destined to become hamburgers. Demon thinks it’s like Tommy is trying to “make up for all the bad things in our lives.”
When he arrives at the farm, Demon feels like he is already saddled with harmful stereotypes that will impede his goal of finding community and belonging. Tommy, though, doesn’t seem to care about those stereotypes and treats Demon with kindness and respect. In that sense, Tommy represents the kind of humanity that the novel argues is so often missing from interactions between people, especially interactions between people of different backgrounds, regions, and cultures. Notably, Demon identifies Tommy’s kindness as an attempt to “make up for all the bad things in [their] lives,” showing that Tommy’s care and compassion are rooted in empathy and a deep understanding of the pain that has impacted each person. With that in mind, the novel presents Tommy as the opposite of people like Romeo Blevins or Stoner. Instead of mistreating people as a reaction to his own, unacknowledged pain, Tommy uses his personal experiences with pain as reason to treat other people with more kindness and compassion.
Themes
After school, Fast Forward comes back to the Crickson house. His real name is Sterling Ford, and he’s a star on the high school football team. When he pulls up in an F-100 Lariat, everyone acts like he’s Captain America. Fast Forward has been at the farm “forever.” Before Mrs. Crickson died, he was treated kind of like their “real son,” even though he hates Mr. Crickson. Crickson and Fast Forward have a deal to split the $500 a month check Crickson gets for fostering Fast Forward. At night, Fast Forward comes into the room Tommy, Swap-Out, and Demon share and asks them to hand over whatever money they have. Demon says he doesn’t have any at first but then finds the $10 Mrs. Peggot gave him at the hospital the night before. He reluctantly gives it to Fast Forward. Fast Forward promises it will go toward a party.
When Demon first meets Fast Forward, he compares him to Captain America, a superhero who serves as a patriotic symbol of the best aspects of the United States. However, Fast Forward is also engaged in economic chicanery in cahoots with Crickson, and, gradually, the novel will reveal the more unsavory aspects of Fast Forward that lurk beneath his charming exterior. Comparing Fast Forward to Captain America, then, subtly critiques the American dream: while it’s an appealing idea that anyone can find success in life, that optimistic view conceals a harsher, less savory reality.
Themes
