Chase Dalcortivo, Period 7, 10/4/2023

 Chase Dalcortivo, Period 7, 10/4/2023

Post Structural Hamilton

Throughout the entirety of Hamilton, Hamilton is often painted as the hero of the story. Despite his rambunctious style (that often gets him into trouble), the story follows him and his inner monologues and it makes the reader oftentimes feel sympathy for him. The entire show he has the philosophy of not throwing away his shot and in the end we are made out to feel bad for him when he is shot by Aaron Burr in a duel and dies soon after.

Through a post structural lens you could analyze the story through Aaron Burr’s perspective as a hero and not a villain, despite the martyr archetype that they set up for Hamilton. Instead of coming to accept Hamilton as the main character of his own story, Lin-Manuel Miranda could have chosen to make Aaron Burr the hero. In a story where Aaron Burr is the hero, it could follow the exact same script but the emotions would be flipped on their head. Every moment where Hamilton says “I am not throwing away my shot,” Aaron Burr could speak instead, saying “Talk less.”  Everytime that Hamilton has an inner moment within the play, Aaron Burr could continue to narrate like he does in certain parts of the story. A story showcasing Aaron Burr as the main character could also be really good to show the perspective of the common citizen at the time. While Aaron Burr was usually directly feuding with Hamilton, or in disagreement, there are many instances where seeing it from him as a main character would show what Hamilton was viewed by by the majority of people. Viewing it from this majority perspective would show the faults of Hamilton without the added sympathy we get from his being our protagonist. At the end of the day, Hamilton is still a person who committed an affair, and had questionable means and connections when it came to the government. A lot of this is lost when we choose to see Hamilton’s entire story through his lens. It makes Aaron Burr feel like a huge villain at the end of the story, when at the end of the day, he dueled in a legal manner, and was scared for his life against the aggressive Hamilton. The perfect ending to the story that would put it into this post structural lens would be the other interpretation of the duel between Hamilton and Burr. Within the actual play (presumably because Hamilton is the protagonist), they choose to go with the version where Hamilton throws away his shot, but this is not canonical with his character. Instead, Burr is our protagonist and is fired at, therefore firing back, and killing Hamilton. The last song could then be Burr dealing with the death from his perspective, and recounting all of the things that people did for Hamilton after his death. Overall, we assume Hamilton to be the protagonist, but if we could reimagine the story through Burr being the main character, we start to see justifications for Hamilton’s death in a duel. Burr being the main character would also open up whole new perspectives on the population at the time, and showcase a side of Hamilton that we don’t get to see from often: Hamilton’s enemies. Instead of everyone subscribing to Hamilton’s radical ideas, we could see the people that agree with the more conservative approach for Aaron Burr. The story told this way would go a long way in also doing the real story justice. We could see the fights between federalists and democratic-republicans, and also have a more historically accurate show removed from the emotions of the original story.

Reimagining the story through the post structural lens adds depth to the story, as well as making  it enjoyable for people who don’t necessarily agree with the way that Hamilton handles the business that he is in. At the end of the day, why have only one perspective on the story, from a fake martyr, when you can have a more accurate and less emotionally engaging version of the story, that really allows you to form your own opinions. This reimagining would do great justice for Aaron Burr and could make him some people’s hero within the story, despite killing Hamilton and everything else unfolding the way it did.