Topdog And Underdog Analysis

Two brothers abandoned by their parents at a very premature age, learn first hand the very harsh and haunting results of being brought up without parental guidance. Topdog/Underdog, written by Suzan-Lori Parks, takes the audience into an environment composed of dialogue between only two characters. The two brothers, Lincoln and Booth; which were said to be names given to them as a cruel joke by their father, are forced to raise each other and fend for themselves. Lincoln, the older of the two, gives up a life of coning people out of their money to lead a more honest and respectable life, only to fall back into deceiving and cheating people once more. Booth, on the other hand, wishes he had the skills to “con” people and curses Lincoln for
This is seen through the way Lincoln earns a living; taking money from innocent people on the streets without any remorse. “We took a father for the money he was gonna get his kids new bikes with and he cried in the street while we vanished” (55). Lincoln is stating how he would take people’s money, innocent good people’s money, and not even look back. Although Lincoln attempts to change his lifestyle, getting an honest job and making honest wages, he quickly returns to a lifestyle of cheating and coning people as soon as he gets fired from his first job. Booth does not partake in the coning game three-card monte, not because he is an honest, hardworking and respectable citizen, but simply because he is not good enough to be successful like Lincoln has been. His desire to play the game and earn a living by taking money from others is revealed through his constant begging of Lincoln to teach him to be a successful three-card monte conman, which Lincoln refuses. “We could be a team, man. Rake in the money!’ (20). Although Booth is not skilled in the game of coning people like his older brother, Booth’s desire to prosper by the means of making others suffer reveals a similarity between the psychological characteristics of him and his brother. Both brothers put
Coming from a background of prospering at the expense of others loses, there seems to be a glimmer of hope for Lincoln’s overall character when he decides to follow a more respectable lifestyle and takes an honest job working in an arcade. It is when Lincoln is working at this job that it seems his character is strong enough to overcome the empty and horrible affects his childhood left on him. At the point when Lincoln begins to show initial signs of character growth, he is quickly brought back to the harsh life he has followed since childhood. Being fired and replaced by a wax dummy parallels the feeling of worthlessness his parents showed toward him throughout his life. Lincoln quickly falls back into the life of lying and coning to gain wealth that it seemed he had finally been able to escape. “Cause my shit is back. And better then it was when I left too” (84). Through the expressions and diction Lincoln uses when conversing with Booth, it appears that the internal struggle Lincoln is coping with is that of a battle between good and evil. Lincoln attempted to leave the life of sin and wrongdoing behind him when he got an honest job at the arcade, only to be overcome once more by sin and fall back down to the lifestyle he fought so hard to