Analyzing Parks's 'Topdog/Underdog'

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What conditions, influences or events caused “Topdog/Underdog” plot to revolve around the differences in the standards and views of two brothers? How or why did it become what it is? In “Topdog/Underdog”, Parks uses language, sentence structure, tone, and other writing style details to display the difference between two brothers who have grown up and are now independent with contrasting views on life. One of the key details that I believe influenced the poem is that the main characters, Lincoln and Booth, were raised in a broken home. The pattern of differences between Lincoln and Booth change the analysis of the play by making the reader pay close attention to the dialect differences, the change in attitude, and the way they stimulate the audience senses through the way Parks writes each character. The way language is used in a play or …show more content…

In scene 1 of Topdog/Underdog, Booth said “You pull that one more time I’ll shoot you” , which is surprisingly like Booth saying he “popped Grace” in scene 6 in terms of outcome. By this I mean the outcome of Booths anger is a “condition” that leads to some of Booth’s irrational choices later in the play, also Booth threatening Lincoln in the first detail is foreshadowing to the end of the play, the same holds true for scene 6 where Booth claims he has shot Grace, and says “who thuh fuck she think she is doing me like she done?”, which shows that the outcome of his anger lead to death for Grace, and that he needs to feel important. Noticing this pattern of impulsiveness, control, and the need to get revenge suggest that the last few lines in scene 6

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