Analysis | "Topdog/Underdog" by Suzan-Lori Parks
- Madison Ross
- Jun 1, 2020
- 6 min read
The following essay will discuss the dialogue of Suzan-Lori Parks's Topdog/Underdog (2001). Readers will learn the personal circumstance and yearnings of each main character, Lincoln and Booth. Additionally, there is also the analysis on each character’s focus being subject to the theme of fate and being predestined to suffer as a black person in the United States of America. Between looking over characters individually and then together, studying their dynamics, readers can pick and conclude a theme in illustration of what it means to automatically be seen as inferior and or lesser than.
When I was a college student, I read and analyzed various works coming across the same encounter or realization of the inevitability of the black community forever being seen as inferior. From James Baldwin’s Notes from a Native Slave and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1965) to Amiri Baraka’s poetry, Langston Hughes’s The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, and even the Spirituals, there is a self-awareness--a consciousness--that livelihood and opportunity is automatically limited to the black community, leaving the outcome of Suzan-Lori Parks's Topdog/Underdog (2001) predestined without difference. Through analyzing Topdog/Underdog, readers can examine the persona of Lincoln, the older brother, Booth, the younger brother, and their relationship towards one another, responding to such limitations--whether they’re aware of them yet or not.
Lincoln throughout the play is the one--generally speaking--mentoring, learning from his past mistakes as an adolescente. Such mistakes refer to him playing cards for money where Lincoln would hustle and deceive other players. Such games lead to his partner getting killed. In learning from these mistakes, Lincoln forever forbids himself from any kind of card game, reflecting the dangers attracted to men like him and his brother.
Lincoln: Yr getting good at solitaire?
Booth: Yeah. How about we play a hand after eating?
Lincoln: Solitaire?
Booth: Poker or rummy or something.
Lincoln: You know I don’t touch thuh cards, man.
Booth: Just for fun.
Lincoln: I don’t touch thuh cards.
Booth: How about for money?
Lincoln: You dont got no money. All the money you got I bring in here.
From budgeting out house and food expenses to giving girl and work advice, Lincoln plays as a mentor and role model to Booth. Good enough to actually play as a mentor figure for Booth, but distant enough to still feel affected from past grievances. Such grievances still linger with Lincoln, illustrated as a voice, a whisper, saying to return to such games that ended him up in shambles or “bad luck” in the first place. It is a whisper in his ear, tantalizing the thought of his worth and skill.
Lincoln: People shopping. Greedy. Thinking the could take me and they got took instead.
(Rest)
Swore off thuh cards. Something inside me telling me --. But I was good.
From this, readers can analyse this inner yearning to play cards as a craving to show Lincoln’s own worth and value as a talented young man. Analysis could present the subcontext of the idea that Lincoln would not have to feel so needy in proving himself at such a deceiving sport if he was not so limited in human development as a black man in the United States. Compared to his brother Booth, Lincoln is well behaved and moving past his card games, much like in the manner of the main character from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1965) in learning to be humble and stand behind the superior masses. It also relates to how Lincoln described his parents and their strides to maintain a certain house order in order for no problems to arise.
It wernt perfect but it was a house and theyd bought it and they brought us there and everything we owned, figuring we could be a family in that house and them things, them two separate things each of them was struggling against, would just leave them be. Them things would see thuh house and be impressed and just leave them be.
There is an awareness or mindset of just wanting to get by, nothing more. Just to get by. Lincoln and Booth’s parents understood that, and so does Lincoln. When eventually their parents decide to leave, it can play on the same voice and yearning for one’s worth to be seen when it’s not. Thus, driving Lincoln and the parents to either give up this game of obedience, splitting and leaving children behind or reverting back to playing card games, or be forced to play by rules not meant for them to benefit from.
When readers learn more about Booth, it can relate to a lot of situations this class has read, regarding pre adolescents not yet aware of the limitations the black community is offered. This brings on tension between such youth and any older generation, and it is no different with Booth towards Lincoln. Unlike Lincoln or his parents, Booth is an outspoken and confident individual, constantly wanting to take charge and bost about his worth which is imagined as a lot for him.
Booth: My new names 3-Card. 3-Card, got it? You wanted to know it so now you know it. 3-card monte by 3-Card. Call me 3-Card from here on out.
From women to card games, Booth believes the world is his. Especially when it comes to card games, Booth believes he and Lincoln together could be the dream life.
Booth: Yeah. Scheming and dreaming. No one throws the cards like you, Link. And with yr moves and my magic, and we get Grace and a girl for to round out the posse. We’d be golden, bro! Am I right?
Not quite understanding Lincoln’s perspective and discouragement towards playing cards, leads Booth to think Lincoln is conspiring to stop. “Here I am trying to earn a living and you standing in my way. YOU STANDING IN MY WAY, LINK!” This is all in the perspective of someone not yet aware or conscious of their limitations and lack of civil rights. Thus, Booth’s focus and perspective on success is much more narrow than Lincoln’s whose perspective has been impacted by psychological trauma of which Booth has not yet endured. Because Booth doesn’t understand, it leads to further resentment and annoyance towards his brother.
There is energy and emotion from Booth of optimism, excited to learn and better himself--far from the mindset of wanting to just get by. In James Baldwin’s Notes from a Native Slave, Baldwin as a child up until his experience at the American Cafe expresses an excitement and almost naivete on the access of learning--the world is your oyster mindset, if you will. How Baldwin's counterparts, his parents specifically, react underwhelmingly or stray from such creativity, not just because that there is a lack of awareness in the craft but also maybe there is knowledge that such creative strides is a white man’s dream (Chapman, 1970). Thus it is impossible for someone like Baldwin, or Booth, to achieve such claims they yearn for as adolescents. It is almost like a blissful ignorance bubble, allowing youth to believe in equal opportunity and eventually leading into a shocktitude of disappointment, and trauma especially when honing in on the black community, that is then burst. Readers can conclude that throughout the play, Booth is in a bubble predestined to burst.
Now having a better understanding of both Lincoln and Booth as individuals and their reactivity towards awareness of being lesser than, focusing on their relationship can also allow insight to a predestined role to disadvantage themselves. What can best be described as subtext dialogue, Lincoln and Booth talk but do not converse about the true adversities both parties go through in getting by. Such writing becomes powerful in illustrating the lack of communication communities suffer from due to trauma experiences, let alone infused systematic offenses to discourage such intimacies such as communication.
Lincoln: I know we brothers, but is we really brothers, you know, blood brothers or not, you and me, whatduhyathink?
Booth: I think we’re brothers.
Booth:
Lincoln:
Booth;
Lincoln:
Booth:
Lincoln:
Lincoln: Go head man, wheres thuh deuce?
Throughout the dialogue, tensions widen as Booth keeps poking at Lincoln to live a life proving one’s worth and as Lincoln can’t fully explain or connect with Booth on how it is safer to blend in and behave. Such tensions are never yet reconciled until such a younger generation or adolescent finally sees their predestined faint. However, it is a theme where it is often too late when the eldest dies, referring also to James Baldwin’s Notes from a Native Slave and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1965). Thus, this is a rather Shakespearean tale of fate and pattern, bequeathed to every black person in the United States.
No matter what point a black person is in their life or dynamic they have with one another, there is the actuality of racism and thus limitations to opportunity in a black person’s life. Such realities lead to a predestined fate of victims perishing and or rendering trauma in reaction to such inequalities and systems enforcing one’s fall. Enough to make one mad. No matter what point in a person’s life or whether or not they are conscious of such limitations, the dialogue and events between Lincoln and Booth allow an understanding of no black person’s worth is big enough to withstand systematic institutionalized racism.
References
Chapman, A. (1970). Black voices; an anthology of Afro-American literature. New York: St. Martins Press.
Ellison, R. (1965). Invisible man. Brantford, Ontario: W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library.
Gates, H. L. (2014). The Norton anthology of African American literature. New York: Norton.
Parks, S. (2001). Topdog/underdog. New York: Theatre Communications Group.
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