Content warning: This section references addiction, death by overdose, physical and emotional abuse, and sexual exploitation.

Demon Copperhead is the eponymous, first-person narrator and protagonist of the novel. Because the novel’s narrative voice deals with both the events of Demon’s life and his reflection on those events, the novel is structured like a memoir. It is also a bildungsroman in which Demon endures several life-altering conflicts and eventually finds peace with himself.

The world has been cruel to Demon, and his early life demonstrates The Failure of Society to Protect Its Children. He was born without a father, and his mother struggled with addiction throughout her short life. He navigates several different forms of false families, such as life with his abusive stepfather, placements in two abusive foster homes, and rejection from his father’s mother. The lack of love in Demon’s childhood and early adolescence makes him radically self-reliant, but it also makes him distrustful of the people who do provide him with security and care. Demon is independent because he must be to survive, but he looks for people to believe in—often misguidedly, as with Fast Forward and Dori.