78 pages • 2 hours read
Demon Copperhead
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Background
Cultural Context: The Opioid Epidemic in America
Demon Copperhead exposes the disastrous impact of the opioid epidemic in America. Though Lee County is in Virginia, it is demographically and culturally more similar to the neighboring state of West Virginia, also known as the epicenter of the opioid epidemic.
In 1996, a pharmaceutical company called Purdue Pharma developed a potent new medication it claimed could cure people’s chronic and acute pain without becoming addictive. OxyContin, the Purdue drug, is an opioid that dulls pain faster and more reliably than morphine. Purdue marketed its drug to the FDA and medical establishment as a cure-all and researched which places in America the drug would sell best in. Appalachia became a prime target due to the number of residents with coal mine-related injuries; many doctors were already prescribing various pain and antidepression medications.
As a result of Purdue’s impressive marketing campaign, it took years for the nation’s opinions about OxyContin to reverse. Communities discovered that rates of drug overdose were going up in alarming ways. When OxyContin prescriptions ran out, many patients ended up turning to heroin. It became clear that Purdue had lied about the non-addictive nature of OxyContin: In fact, OxyContin is a shockingly addictive drug, requiring higher dosages the longer one uses it. However, even as overdose deaths mounted, communities not yet touched by the opioid epidemic blamed unemployment, poverty, and ignorance for the news coming out of West Virginia. It took years for America to understand the ways in which states like West Virginia were taken advantage of by wealthy and powerful pharmaceutical companies.
CDC (Center for Disease Control) statistics from 2016 highlight West Virginia’s epidemic: The state had the highest rate of deaths by drug overdoses, which were twice as common as deaths in motor vehicle accidents. These statistics emphasize the destruction of the state at the hands of pharmaceutical companies and demonstrate that virtually everyone in West Virginia was touched in some way by the epidemic. This is very much the case in Demon Copperhead; everyone Demon knows has some connection to drugs, highlighting one example of The Exploitation of the Rural Working Class.
West Virginia was among the first states to formally sue the Sackler family (owners of Purdue Pharma) for the destruction wrought on their communities.
Literary Context: Charles Dickens and the Didactic Novel
Kingsolver used David Copperfield by Charles Dickens as a blueprint for Demon Copperhead. She draws similar characters, storylines, and structures in her novel, creating a clear parallel between the two books. Kingsolver’s adaptation pays homage to Dickens’s literary purpose and themes.
Dickens is a classic English writer from the 19th century, author of Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations, among others. Originally a journalist, Dickens turned to literature to better reach his readers. To Dickens, literature was didactic: He wanted to use literature to teach his readers about the problems in their society. In Victorian England, those who read novels were mostly well-educated middle or upper-class people. They were out of touch with what was happening to the more impoverished classes in the wake of industrialization, which further stratified society and created a host of problems related to urbanization—overcrowding, disease, etc. Dickens assaulted his readers’ sense of self by revealing what impoverished people were going through, how the rich had a hand in their mistreatment, and what responsibilities society owed individuals.
Kingsolver seeks to do the same. Well-known for her narratives about social justice issues, Kingsolver also sees the novel as a means of teaching and cultivating empathy—a way to break down those barriers typically erected by caste societies. Like Dickens, she focuses on a community ravaged by economic changes; though Appalachia had historically been an impoverished region, it was hit hard by the late 20th- and early 21st-century decline of the coal industry and offshoring of other blue-collar jobs. Also like Dickens, she writes for a readership that may be unfamiliar with the systemic problems she depicts.
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