Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic
Through Demon’s story, Barbara Kingsolver highlights and gives a human voice to the opioid epidemic. Narcotic painkillers like OxyContin have been prescribed to treat a variety of health concerns; however, the drugs are highly addictive, and overdose rates have continued to climb since the drugs entered the market in the 1990s.
Early in the novel, When Demon’s mother succumbs to an oxy overdose, he doesn’t even know what oxy is yet. Telling his life story in retrospect, after also becoming addicted himself, Demon describes his mom as an early casualty of what would become a widespread crisis in the region. He refers to opioids as “our deliverance” from the myriad pains that come along with work, sports, and daily life in Appalachia. When it was first prescribed, patients were “told . . . this pill was safer than safe.” At the time of Demon’s mother’s death, people assume she died as a result of “[her own] reckless mistake.” Later, when the overdoses rise, it becomes clear that the numbers have “got to mean something.”
As Demon enters his adolescent and teenage years, he and the vast majority of his peers become addicted to drugs. He tells June that every kid he knows is taking pills. Demon himself falls into the trap when he suffers a gruesome leg injury in a football game and is given painkillers instead of a surgery he desperately needs. When he first begins his pills, he romanticizes its effects on him: “Cool relief, baby, let’s you and me go cruising Main. Just hold my hand. Lortab was her name. Blessed, blessed lady.” The drug has a calming effect on Demon, and he is grateful for the relief it provides. The downside, of course, is that he becomes dependent on that feeling. When he picks up a prescription for OxyContin, it “shook” Demon, so he “stumbled, running smack into a homeless guy,” who asks if Demon is blind. This foreshadows the way in which his addiction will blur Demon’s judgment and result in irreparable damage.
For her part, June recognizes early on the potential hazards of opioid usage and especially the ways in which pharmaceutical companies, like the one her long-time boyfriend Kent works for, target vulnerable populations to make profits for their businesses. She is upset to see that Demon is on the strong painkillers, referring to Kent as a “hired killer for his company.” She reveals that Kent and his “vampire associates” came to Lee County “prospecting,” having researched “hand-picked targets” where they could peddle their narcotics.
June encourages Demon to forgive himself and “quit thinking this mess was our fault.” She tries to awaken Demon to the ways drug companies have taken advantage of his community. June also tells Demon about a potential solution, Suboxone, and he later enters a rehab program and begins to get clean. The novel ultimately offers a multifaceted dramatization of the opioid epidemic in America, particularly in rural areas, and also trains the reader’s sympathy toward young addicts like Demon.
Names and Identity
In a novel that takes its title from its protagonist’s nickname, it’s no wonder that names and their connection to characters’ identities are a central concern of the work. Demon Copperhead is an homage to Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, with a specifically regional twist. Early on, Demon discusses how prominent nicknames are in his community when he explains,
I didn’t realize until pretty late in life . . . that in other places people stick with the names they start out with. Who knew? . . . I just...
(This entire section contains 382 words.)
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assumed every place was like us, up home in Lee County, where most guys get something else on theme that sticks.
His best friend goes by Maggot, rather than Matthew Peggot, which Demon invented to circumvent bullies’ attempts to call Maggot by a homosexual slur. Several other male characters go by nicknames as well, including Fast Forward, Swap-Out, and Hammer Kelly. Even Demon’s foster sister adopted the name that others attempted to use against her, Angus, in place of her given name of Agnes. There is power in claiming and embodying a name.
Demon’s birth name is Damon Fields, taking his father’s first name and his mother’s last name. He worries about kids making fun of him with a name like Damon, but it doesn’t take long for his name to be transformed into “Demon” and then for kids to pair Demon with rhyming words. Once his “copper-wire hair” arrives, he is referred to as “Little Copperhead.” Eventually, the fragments merge into “Demon Copperhead,” which he admits has “got a power to it.”
Demon also hails from an area “known to be crawling with copperheads,” so his name connects him strongly to the place he was born and raised. Demon’s father went by the nickname Copperhead and sported a snake tattoo, so despite his nickname not being given to him by his parents, the title bonds him to his father. The moniker “Demon,” though, could be considered ironic. Demon is a troubled boy, but he is certainly not evil. He cares deeply for those around him, yearns for family and human connection, and dedicates himself to his interests and passions. As it turns out, having an intimidating name doesn’t protect him from abuse or judgment.
Negotiating Stereotypes
Demon grows up in rural mountainous Lee County, in Appalachian Virginia. Demon contends with stereotypical and prejudiced attitudes towards people like him, who are often branded with slurs like “hillbilly” or “redneck.” Demon asserts that “Hillbilly is a word everybody knows. Except they don’t.” He tries to deconstruct the popular culture depiction of “hillbillies,” such as on the sitcom Beverly Hillbillies, contrasting the characters’ actions of “yodeling” or “keeping pigs in the house” with the reality of life in Appalachia as he knows it.
Demon feels frustrated when comedians make jokes about “rednecks,” as though those who are the butt of the jokes can’t hear their insults. Mr. Peg, however, reclaims the term “hillbilly” with his “Hillbilly Cadillac” bumper sticker and educates Demon on how they can take the word back, use it themselves, and acquire “a superpower on accident.” If people like Demon can identify themselves with these slurs, “they can’t ever be us, or get us, and we are untouchable by their shit.” Their use of the language helps them reclaim the power over the word and its connotations.
Demon seems to follow in Mr. Peg’s footsteps when he creates his Red Neck comic, a superhero who rights injustices in his community and common troubles of Appalachian life, like having one’s power shut off by the electric company. Supplied with the knowledge he learned from Mr. Armstrong, Demon draws “a miner, with a pick, overalls, the hard hat with the light on the front” and “a red bandanna like the old badass strikers that had their war.” The strip attracts a following, likely because the people of the community recognize themselves in this comic, unlike the hackneyed, stereotypical Stumpy Fiddles the local paper has been running, a cartoon that trafficked in details like “patched clothes” and “Old Maw nags.”
As Demon’s friend and colleague Tommy researches the history of Appalachia, he passes on his knowledge to Demon; both young men seek to understand why the absurd two-dimensional idea of their people persists in the country at large. They plan to publish a graphic novel that will expose the truth of their history and the forces that created the disadvantages of their community and the stereotypes that accompany them.
At the metafictional level, the novel itself also serves as a similar corrective to biases against the people of Appalachia and other rural communities that allowed the outside world to turn a blind eye to their suffering for so long.
