Alexander Hamilton Character Analysis

BURR: There would have been nothing left to do for someone less astute,
He woulda been dead or destitute,
Without a cent of restitution,
Started workin’—clerkin’ for his late mother’s landlord,
Tradin’ sugar cane and rum and all the things he can’t afford
Scammin’ for every book he can get his hands on
Plannin’ for the future see him now as he stands on
The bow of a ship heading for a new land.
In New York you can be a new man.

BURR: Talk less.

HAMILTON: What?

BURR: Smile more.

HAMILTON: Ha.

BURR: Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.

HAMILTON: You can’t be serious.

BURR: You wanna get ahead?

HAMILTON: Yes.

BURR: Fools who run their mouths oft wind up dead.

HAMILTON: I am not throwing away my shot!
I am not throwing away my shot!
Hey yo, I’m just like my country,
I’m young, scrappy and hungry,
And I’m not throwing away my shot!

HAMILTON: I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
When’s it gonna get me?
In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me?
If I see it comin’ do I run or do I let it be?
Is it like a beat without a melody?
See, I never thought I’d live past twenty
Where I come from some get half as many.
Ask anybody why we livin’ fast and we
Laugh, reach for a flask,
We have to make this moment last, that’s plenty.

LAURENS: Raise a glass to the four of us.

HAMILTON, LAURENS, MULLIGAN, LAFAYETTE: Tomorrow there’ll be more of us.

HAMILTON, LAURENS: Telling the story of tonight.

MULLIGAN, LAFAYETTE: Let’s have another round tonight.

WASHINGTON: It’s alright, you wanna fight, you’ve got a hunger.
I was just like you when I was younger.
Head full of fantasies of dyin’ like a martyr?

HAMILTON: Yes.

WASHINGTON: Dyin’ is easy, young man.
Living is harder.

HAMILTON: I’ve been livin’ without a family since I was a child.
My father left, my mother died, I grew up buckwild.
But I’ll never forget my mother’s face, that was real
And long as I’m alive, Eliza, swear to God, you’ll never feel so…

WOMEN: Helpless

ELIZA: I do I do I do I dooo!

ANGELICA: To the groom!
To the bride!
From your sister.
Who is always by your side.
To your union.
And the hope you provide.
May you always
Be satisfied.
And I know
She’ll be happy as his bride.
And I know
He will never be satisfied.
I will never be satisfied.

ELIZA: I don’t pretend to know
The challenges you’re facing.
The worlds you keep erasing and creating in your mind.
But I’m not afraid.
I know who I married.
So long as you come home at the end of the day
That would be enough […]
Oh, let me be a part of the narrative
In the story they will write someday.
Let this moment be the first chapter
Where you decide to stay
And I could be enough
And we could be enough
That would be enough.

WASHINGTON: Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory.
You have no control

WASHINGTON, COMPANY: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.

LAFAYETTE: Monsieur Hamilton.

HAMILTON: Monsieur Lafayette.

LAFAYETTE: In command where you belong.

HAMILTON: How you say, no sweat.
We’re finally on the field. We’ve had quite a run.

LAFAYETTE: Immigrants.

HAMILTON, LAFAYETTE: We get the job done.

BURR: My father wasn’t around

HAMILTON: I swear that

BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll be around for you.

HAMILTON: I’ll do whatever it takes.

BURR: I’ll make a million mistakes.

BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll make the world safe and sound for you…
Will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you.
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you, and you’ll blow us all away….
Someday, someday

BURR: The Constitution’s a mess.

HAMILTON: So it needs amendments.

BURR: It’s full of contradictions.

HAMILTON: So is independence.
We have to start somewhere.

BURR: No. No way.

HAMILTON: You’re making a mistake.

BURR: Goodnight.

HAMILTON: Hey.
What are you waiting for?
What do you stall for?

BURR: What?

HAMILTON: We won the war.
What was it all for?
Do you support the Constitution?

BURR: Of course.

HAMILTON: Then defend it.

BURR: And what if you’re backing the wrong horse?

HAMILTON: Thomas. That was a real nice declaration.
Welcome to the present. We’re running a real nation.
Would you like to join us, or stay mellow,
Doin’ whatever the hell it is you do in Monticello?
If we assume the debts, the Union gets a new line of credit, a financial diuretic.
How do you not get it? If we’re aggressive and competitive
The Union gets a boost. You’d rather give it a sedative?
A civics lesson from a slaver. Hey neighbor.
Your debts are paid cuz you don’t pay for labor.
“We plant seeds in the ground. We create.” Yeah, keep ranting.
We know who’s really doing the planting.

HAMILTON, JEFFERSON, MADISON, WASHINGTON: What do you want, Burr?
What do you want, Burr?
If you stand for nothing,
Burr, what do you fall for?

BURR: I
Wanna be in
The room where it happens.
The room where it happens.
I
Wanna be in
The room where it happens.
The room where it happens.

JEFFERSON: He knows nothing of loyalty.
Smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty.
Desperate to rise above his station,
Everything he does betrays the ideals of our nation.
And if ya don’t know, now ya know, Mr. President.

HAMILTON: Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I have committed many errors. I shall also carry with me

HAMILTON, WASHINGTON: The hope that my country will view them with indulgence
And that after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as I myself must soon be.

HAMILTON: I wrote my way out of hell.
I wrote my way to revolution.
I was louder than the crack in the bell.
I wrote Eliza love letters until she fell.
I wrote about the Constitution and defended it well.
And in the face of ignorance and resistance,
I wrote financial systems into existence.
And when my prayers to God were met with indifference,
I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.

ELIZA: You and your words, obsessed with your legacy
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you?
You, you, you…
I’m erasing myself from the narrative.
Let future historians wonder
How Eliza reacted when you broke her heart.
You have torn it all apart […]
I’m burning the memories,
Burning the letters that might have redeemed you.

ANGELICA: They are standing in the garden,
Alexander by Eliza’s side.
She takes his hand […]

ELIZA: It’s quiet uptown.

Hamilton shatters.

COMPANY: Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
If you see him in the streets, walking by her side, talking by her side, have pity.
They are going through the unimaginable.

HAMILTON: I have never agreed with Jefferson once.
We have fought on like seventy-five diff’rent fronts!
But when all is said and all is done.
Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none.

BURR: They won’t teach you this in your classes,
But look it up, Hamilton was wearing his glasses.
Why? If not to take deadly aim?
It’s him or me, the world will never be the same.
I had only one thought before the slaughter:
This man will not make an orphan of my daughter.

HAMILTON: If I throw away my shot, is this how you remember me?
What if this bullet is my legacy?
Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me.
You let me make a difference.
A place where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints and rise up.
I’m running out of time, I’m running and my time’s up. Wise up. Eyes up.

ELIZA: I see you every time
And when my time is up?
Will they tell my story?
Oh, I can’t wait to see you again.
It’s only a matter of—

ELIZA, COMPANY: Time.

COMPANY: Will they tell your story?
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
Will they tell your story?
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

BURR: There would have been nothing left to do for someone less astute,
He woulda been dead or destitute,
Without a cent of restitution,
Started workin’—clerkin’ for his late mother’s landlord,
Tradin’ sugar cane and rum and all the things he can’t afford
Scammin’ for every book he can get his hands on
Plannin’ for the future see him now as he stands on
The bow of a ship heading for a new land.
In New York you can be a new man.

BURR: Talk less.

HAMILTON: What?

BURR: Smile more.

HAMILTON: Ha.

BURR: Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.

HAMILTON: You can’t be serious.

BURR: You wanna get ahead?

HAMILTON: Yes.

BURR: Fools who run their mouths oft wind up dead.

HAMILTON: I am not throwing away my shot!
I am not throwing away my shot!
Hey yo, I’m just like my country,
I’m young, scrappy and hungry,
And I’m not throwing away my shot!

HAMILTON: I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
When’s it gonna get me?
In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me?
If I see it comin’ do I run or do I let it be?
Is it like a beat without a melody?
See, I never thought I’d live past twenty
Where I come from some get half as many.
Ask anybody why we livin’ fast and we
Laugh, reach for a flask,
We have to make this moment last, that’s plenty.

LAURENS: Raise a glass to the four of us.

HAMILTON, LAURENS, MULLIGAN, LAFAYETTE: Tomorrow there’ll be more of us.

HAMILTON, LAURENS: Telling the story of tonight.

MULLIGAN, LAFAYETTE: Let’s have another round tonight.

WASHINGTON: It’s alright, you wanna fight, you’ve got a hunger.
I was just like you when I was younger.
Head full of fantasies of dyin’ like a martyr?

HAMILTON: Yes.

WASHINGTON: Dyin’ is easy, young man.
Living is harder.

HAMILTON: I’ve been livin’ without a family since I was a child.
My father left, my mother died, I grew up buckwild.
But I’ll never forget my mother’s face, that was real
And long as I’m alive, Eliza, swear to God, you’ll never feel so…

WOMEN: Helpless

ELIZA: I do I do I do I dooo!

ANGELICA: To the groom!
To the bride!
From your sister.
Who is always by your side.
To your union.
And the hope you provide.
May you always
Be satisfied.
And I know
She’ll be happy as his bride.
And I know
He will never be satisfied.
I will never be satisfied.

ELIZA: I don’t pretend to know
The challenges you’re facing.
The worlds you keep erasing and creating in your mind.
But I’m not afraid.
I know who I married.
So long as you come home at the end of the day
That would be enough […]
Oh, let me be a part of the narrative
In the story they will write someday.
Let this moment be the first chapter
Where you decide to stay
And I could be enough
And we could be enough
That would be enough.

WASHINGTON: Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory.
You have no control

WASHINGTON, COMPANY: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.

LAFAYETTE: Monsieur Hamilton.

HAMILTON: Monsieur Lafayette.

LAFAYETTE: In command where you belong.

HAMILTON: How you say, no sweat.
We’re finally on the field. We’ve had quite a run.

LAFAYETTE: Immigrants.

HAMILTON, LAFAYETTE: We get the job done.

BURR: My father wasn’t around

HAMILTON: I swear that

BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll be around for you.

HAMILTON: I’ll do whatever it takes.

BURR: I’ll make a million mistakes.

BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll make the world safe and sound for you…
Will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you.
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you, and you’ll blow us all away….
Someday, someday

BURR: The Constitution’s a mess.

HAMILTON: So it needs amendments.

BURR: It’s full of contradictions.

HAMILTON: So is independence.
We have to start somewhere.

BURR: No. No way.

HAMILTON: You’re making a mistake.

BURR: Goodnight.

HAMILTON: Hey.
What are you waiting for?
What do you stall for?

BURR: What?

HAMILTON: We won the war.
What was it all for?
Do you support the Constitution?

BURR: Of course.

HAMILTON: Then defend it.

BURR: And what if you’re backing the wrong horse?

HAMILTON: Thomas. That was a real nice declaration.
Welcome to the present. We’re running a real nation.
Would you like to join us, or stay mellow,
Doin’ whatever the hell it is you do in Monticello?
If we assume the debts, the Union gets a new line of credit, a financial diuretic.
How do you not get it? If we’re aggressive and competitive
The Union gets a boost. You’d rather give it a sedative?
A civics lesson from a slaver. Hey neighbor.
Your debts are paid cuz you don’t pay for labor.
“We plant seeds in the ground. We create.” Yeah, keep ranting.
We know who’s really doing the planting.

HAMILTON, JEFFERSON, MADISON, WASHINGTON: What do you want, Burr?
What do you want, Burr?
If you stand for nothing,
Burr, what do you fall for?

BURR: I
Wanna be in
The room where it happens.
The room where it happens.
I
Wanna be in
The room where it happens.
The room where it happens.

JEFFERSON: He knows nothing of loyalty.
Smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty.
Desperate to rise above his station,
Everything he does betrays the ideals of our nation.
And if ya don’t know, now ya know, Mr. President.

HAMILTON: Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I have committed many errors. I shall also carry with me

HAMILTON, WASHINGTON: The hope that my country will view them with indulgence
And that after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as I myself must soon be.

HAMILTON: I wrote my way out of hell.
I wrote my way to revolution.
I was louder than the crack in the bell.
I wrote Eliza love letters until she fell.
I wrote about the Constitution and defended it well.
And in the face of ignorance and resistance,
I wrote financial systems into existence.
And when my prayers to God were met with indifference,
I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.

ELIZA: You and your words, obsessed with your legacy
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you?
You, you, you…
I’m erasing myself from the narrative.
Let future historians wonder
How Eliza reacted when you broke her heart.
You have torn it all apart […]
I’m burning the memories,
Burning the letters that might have redeemed you.

ANGELICA: They are standing in the garden,
Alexander by Eliza’s side.
She takes his hand […]

ELIZA: It’s quiet uptown.

Hamilton shatters.

COMPANY: Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
If you see him in the streets, walking by her side, talking by her side, have pity.
They are going through the unimaginable.

HAMILTON: I have never agreed with Jefferson once.
We have fought on like seventy-five diff’rent fronts!
But when all is said and all is done.
Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none.

BURR: They won’t teach you this in your classes,
But look it up, Hamilton was wearing his glasses.
Why? If not to take deadly aim?
It’s him or me, the world will never be the same.
I had only one thought before the slaughter:
This man will not make an orphan of my daughter.

HAMILTON: If I throw away my shot, is this how you remember me?
What if this bullet is my legacy?
Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me.
You let me make a difference.
A place where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints and rise up.
I’m running out of time, I’m running and my time’s up. Wise up. Eyes up.

ELIZA: I see you every time
And when my time is up?
Will they tell my story?
Oh, I can’t wait to see you again.
It’s only a matter of—

ELIZA, COMPANY: Time.

COMPANY: Will they tell your story?
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
Will they tell your story?
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?