| re: But it's ultimately the right series of setups & payoffs for the protagonist | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 02:05 pm EDT 07/05/20 | |
| In reply to: But it's ultimately the right series of setups & payoffs for the protagonist - GrumpyMorningBoy 01:21 pm EDT 07/05/20 | |
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| I'm not sure I follow your train of thought - or if I do, I guess I don't agree that the order of how we meet the women has any bearing on my investment in Hamilton's marriage (or that I would be cheering him on to have an affair and abandon his wife). A few thoughts: I think you should at least consider the possibility that by seeing Hamilton fall in love with Eliza before knowing about the Angelica attraction, Miranda is cementing the rightness of his marrying Eliza and the centrality of that relationship in his life. While Hamilton enjoys flirting with Angelica, and while she holds out hope that he loves her, he's very clear that he knows who he married. And for the show as a whole, Eliza is the last voice we hear, and her journey is the one that makes his have meaning. There's a reason we don't end with Angelica, and it's not just because she died first. Eliza becomes the heart of the play. Your analysis of the first act skips over "That Would Be Enough", which is a major love song. I'm surprised that doesn't lead you to invest in this marriage, but the writing expects you to be invested in them by that point, and to use this moment to become more deeply involved in their marriage and family story. Otherwise, we could just stay with the war and make Act 1 a bit shorter. It's true that we have empathy for Hamilton as he makes his series of unfortunate choices in Act 2, but empathy doesn't mean that we should want him to make that choice, or that we shouldn't be conflicted about that choice. Yes, Hamilton must serve his country and create the central bank and resolve state debts so that we can have America - but also, Eliza is right that he is ignoring his family, and Philip is performed in the film as a neglected child who by age 9 has severe daddy issues and emotional problems which lead to him being killed at 19 in a sacrificial attempt to defend his father's honor (which was besmirched in the first place when his father publicly humiliated his mother). Both of these realities are true, and we should feel torn between our loyalties, and I think that satisfaction of the drama comes from these complexities. Likewise, we can understand his psychology enough to empathize with his need to tell the world about his affair in order to not be vulnerable to blackmail or political pressure, even as we don't forgive him for what he does to his wife and family. Likewise, I downright hate the man for going to duel with Burr and abandoning his wife YET AGAIN, leaving her completely alone, and all because... what? Because his career is at an end and his heart is broken because his ambition led to his son dying? So he's going to take his own life as well, rather than be there for his wife? Truly, there's something monstrous and unbearably selfish about Hamilton - and the show is more meaningful because that complexity is at the core of the drama. Your analysis of our desire for Hamilton to achieve his goals works for the first act, which is very much the mold of the Hero's Journey. But in Act 2, Hamilton becomes an anti-hero, and the story structure is built upon the morality tale of how he makes bad choices - a structure that "Congratulations" directly calls out when Angelica reminds him that she begged him to come with them to take a break, rather than continuing to work and having this affair-turned-prostitution situation. To get to back your thesis, this further reminds us that he abandoned the project of making America a better place when he wrote the Reynolds Pamphlet, because it tanked his chances of continuing building the country actively. One of the brilliances of the play, I think, is in how boldly it embraces the two act structure to tell two very different one-act musicals that combine as a whole. Act 1 is a Hero's Journey, and it ends with Hamilton victorious. But in the second act, we find ourselves in a tragedy, and we end with a broken man embracing the death he has spent his entire life worrying about, leaving behind the people who love him. And I think that is why we end in this massive outpouring of grief, rather than celebration - and why we end with Eliza, who loved him most, and who was loved most by him in return. |
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