“about family wounds and healing”: Topdog/Underdog 연구

Abstract

Topdog/Underdog is one of the many successful plays written by Susan Lori Parks, who has come to represent African-American female playwrights. Many of her plays deal with history, especially African-American history that has been neglected, silenced, and forgotten since the period of slavery. Topdog/Underdog also covers another aspect of American history by introducing an important historical fact: Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. Parks explains that the play is basically about “family wounds and healing.” Indeed, the main characters of the play are two brothers named Lincoln and Booth who, were borh victims of childhood abuse and were neglected by their parents. While the trauma still haunts their daily lives up to the present, both try to overcome their trauma and restore their self-esteem through various means, which sometimes appear bizarre or disgusting. The intricately woven plot includes a game of Three card Monte, the game of murdering Lincoln in an amusement park, and the psychotic dynamics of topdog/underdogs. Within the context, the play effectively represents the doomed struggles of these brothers as they attempt to transition from being victims and underdogs to being survivors and topdogs.