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Act 1: Aaron Burr, Sir
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hamilton, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Collaboration, Disagreement, and Democracy
Stories vs. History
Ambition and Mortality
Immigration and Diversity of Influence
Honor
Summary
Analysis
While Hamilton gets a degree from King’s College, the American colonists are getting angrier and angrier. British taxation is too high, and a revolution is brewing. Hamilton sees the revolution as a chance to make a name for himself: “hey yo, I’m just like my country / I’m young, scrappy, and hungry / and I’m not throwing away my shot.”
Lafayette, who is French, expresses his hope that the American Revolution will inspire the French people to fight for their own independence. Laurens wants to end slavery. Mulligan, a tailor’s apprentice, just wants to “socially advance, instead of sewin’ some pants.”
Like Hamilton, Lafayette is an immigrant, and like Hamilton, he will prove essential to America’s very existence. The boisterous Mulligan also highlights that, unlike Burr (and later Jefferson and Madison), Hamilton’s group of friends is anything but elite.
Themes
Then the song quiets down, and Hamilton sings about his own fears of mortality: “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.” By the end of the song, Hamilton is speaking to a crowd of people, and all the characters sing in counterpoint.
Hamilton’s ambition—his desire to take every “shot” he can get—is intimately linked to this obsession with death. “The ticking clock is loud in both our ears,” composer Miranda says of his protagonist, “and it sets us to work.” It’s also worth noting that the musical hubbub—in which something melodic comes from chaos—reflects the general process of democracy, in which messy collaboration ideally leads to a stronger, more unifying final product.
Themes
