Topdog Underdog Analysis PDF

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An analysis of the play "Topdog/Underdog" by Suzan-Lori Parks....

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name Christina Dennehy TH 451 04 November 2019

Topdog/Underdog Analysis The problem that the playwright is trying to solve in Topdog/Underdog is the breakdown of black families due to poverty. Suzan-Lori Parks argues that, due to the environments that people of color are forced to survive in, the “stable nuclear family” is unable to live. Relationships between brother and brother, parent and child, husband and wife, are broken and distorted. This is best shown through Booth’s lines in Scene 5, when the two brothers talk about their parents’ abandonment: She split then he split. Like thuh whole family mortgage bills going to work thing was just too much. And I don’t blame them. You don’t see me holding down a steady job. Cause its bullshit and I know it. I seen how it cracked them up and I ain’t going there. (1661) Here, Booth summarizes the play’s overall issue— there are moral ways to survive in the environment that the two have been put through, but because of the systematic racism that has seeped into capitalism, just “getting a job” doesn’t solve the issues that Lincoln and Booth face. This is the cause of the deterioration of the relationships in their lives: it is what caused their parents to split and abandon their children and it is also what causes the toxicity between Lincoln and Booth. Booth specifically talks about how it “cracked them up”, tearing apart their relationship and leaving their children to deal with the aftermath. Booth knows that the system is

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rigged against them, so they have no choice but to do what they can to survive, even if it means doing something morally reprehensible. In short, the problem that the playwright is trying to address is the issue of how capitalism is rigged to force people of color into poverty. In turn, this poverty breaks apart their relationships, especially in marriages and between parents and their children. Topdog/Underdog calls the audience to look at these broken relationships and question the system in place which is saturated in systematic racism....