Poverty
Poverty is the most pervasive theme in Demon Copperhead. Demon's entire life, and the lives of the people around him, are profoundly shaped by economic forces outside their control. Demon grows up with almost nothing and, from an early age, is put to work doing hard labor for meager pay. He watches how crushing poverty drains the people around him both physically and emotionally, as they seem forced to take part in a system that is designed to work against them. He recounts how the coal companies enticed people to work for them only to pay them next to nothing, force them to buy food at their stores, and leave them with no bargaining rights and terrible health issues. By the end of the book, with the help of his teachers and guardians, he comes to realize that things should have been different, inspiring him to depict the struggle of growing up in rural Appalachia as one with dignity, meaning, and resilience. This realization also allows him to look at himself and others with more sympathy and kindness.
Community
Community is another key theme in the novel. While Demon experiences periods of desperation and despair, he is often able to rely on the kindness of those around him in key moments. His grandmother sends him to live with Coach, providing him with the most stable home he has ever known. Ms. Annie takes his art seriously and offers him extra instruction for free. His friend Tommy from the tobacco farm helps him get a job as a cartoonist. June pushes him to get sober after Hammer's death and helps him find a good halfway house where he can do so. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Angus shows him he is a person deserving of love and care—a realization that is possible for him only after the course of the entire narrative.
Addiction
Addiction plays a major thematic role in the novel. Addiction appears early in the book, after Demon's mother overdoses on OxyContin. Demon himself becomes addicted to painkillers after suffering a football injury. At the same time, he watches it destroy the lives of almost everyone around him, severely damaging people like Emmy and Maggot and killing Dori. Towards the book's end, he learns that drugs were pushed in rural communities by pharmaceutical companies looking to turn a profit on severely addictive substances. Kingsolver pays unflinching attention to the tragedy of addiction and its effects on rural communities, like Lee County, across the United States, using Demon's narrative as a window into the widespread destruction that the opioid crisis wrought. At the same time, Demon's own personal history shows the slippery slope that leads to his severe drug problem.
Love
Love is another important theme in the book. Kingsolver explores the way in which love can be both healing and destructive, as it leads some characters to save people from the brink of destruction while preventing others from being happy or healthy. Demon's love for Dori makes it almost impossible for him to get sober, as he is surrounded by her constant drug use. In contrast, Angus's love for him makes him feel as though he might be a person worthy of care, inspiring him to begin a new chapter of his life. Kingsolver does not highlight love as being an exclusively good thing, but she does a good job of suggesting its power, in both directions.
Despair
Despair is another major theme in the book. At many points, Demon finds himself in complete despair about his misfortunes. He feels this way after his mother dies and also when he is robbed by a frightening woman at a gas station. He also experiences this feeling, perhaps most acutely, when he spends a night sleeping in a cave and hallucinating while on opioids. These moments are important as, at these junctures, Demon questions the value of his life. Despair is framed as something that makes Demon wonder if he should have ever been born, if his life was going to be so hopeless. Likewise, as he observes in Dori, despair and hopelessness drive many of the people around him to drug addiction, as they want some way out of their bleak circumstances.
Charity
Charity is an important and complex theme in the novel. Demon receives charity from various people, but is careful not to confuse it with love. His grandmother sets him up to live with Coach, but when he starts performing poorly in school, stops sending checks for his education. Coach gives him a chance to play for a football team, but this also ends up enabling his painkiller addiction. The Peggots welcome him into their home, but say they cannot take care of another child. Demon learns early on that people extending kindness to him is never simple, and very often comes with a catch.
Hate
Hate is another important theme in the book. Demon explores different kinds of hate and prejudice, describing instances of people believing stereotypes. He often references the fact that people make heartless jokes about rednecks, mocking their accents and lifestyles, with no thought about their real struggles. He believes that this kind of behavior cruelly reduces people's humanity to nothing. Similarly, he is disturbed when people gossip about Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Annie for having an interracial marriage, as he knows this gossip is based solely on prejudice and hate.
