{"id":112190,"date":"2016-02-27T23:39:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T23:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/02\/27\/the-trap-of-the-two-woman-love-triangle-is-not-one\/"},"modified":"2016-02-27T23:39:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-27T23:39:56","slug":"the-trap-of-the-two-woman-love-triangle-is-not-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/02\/27\/the-trap-of-the-two-woman-love-triangle-is-not-one\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
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The trap of the two-woman love triangle is not one that Hamilton entirely avoids. Angelica and Eliza fall neatly into the old conventional\/rebellious dichotomy. Angelica, who stands center stage as she raps, \u201cI\u2019ve been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine \/ So men say that I\u2019m intense or I\u2019m insane,\u201d is the rebellious one. Eliza, who has, she tells us, \u201cnever been the type to try and grab the spotlight,\u201d is the conventionally feminine one. And because Angelica and Eliza are the only major female characters in the show \u2014 Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds, the other two female singing parts, have one song apiece \u2014 they stand in for all women. Angelica is not just an intellectual woman in the way that Hamilton and Jefferson are intellectual men; she is the intellectual woman. Eliza is not just a domestic woman but the domestic woman.<\/p>\n

\nBut Hamilton does depart from the typical love triangle structure when it comes time to designate one of the women as good and the other as bad. The show has no interest in doing so, and it can be shocking to realize this. Watching Hamilton for the first time it is easy to anticipate, as Als does in his New Yorker review, that because Eliza is \u201cgenteel\u201d she must be \u201ctherefore dull,\u201d or that because Angelica is politically intelligent she must be angry and shrill, as Noonan is pleasantly surprised to find she is not. Instead, Hamilton treats both its women with respect and admiration. It operates on the assumption that both of these characters are important, that the different ways they perform femininity are valid, and that their contributions to history are valuable.<\/p>\n

\n*What makes Hamilton unique is that it recognizes the tragedy in both women\u2019s lives*<\/p>\n

\nHamilton recognizes that in the 18th century, both rebellious and conventionally feminine women are trapped. Angelica has the intellect and the drive to make valuable contributions to the emerging republic, but instead she is stuck behind the scenes, \u201ca girl in a world in which \/ my only job is to marry rich.\u201d Her refrain throughout the show is, \u201cI will never be satisfied,\u201d because it is her tragedy to live in a world where she cannot do the kind of work that would satisfy her. In contrast, Eliza has the opportunity and means to do the kind of domestic work that she loves and is good at, but she lives in a world where this kind of work is not valued, because it\u2019s considered less important than the political work Hamilton does. Eliza is stuck at the fringes of history, whispering, \u201cOh, let me be a part of the narrative,\u201d and her refrain is, \u201cThat would be enough,\u201d because it is her tragedy to live in a world where she is denied the little respect she asks for.<\/p>\n

\nAnd Hamilton gives both Angelica and Eliza the space onstage to examine their tragedies. Angelica\u2019s \u201cSatisfied\u201d is widely considered to be one of the best songs in the show \u2014 Rolling Stone calls it Hamilton\u2019s \u201cfinest moment\u201d \u2014 and the musical ends with Eliza in the spotlight and center stage, declaring, \u201cI put myself back in the narrative.\u201d In the world of Hamilton, Angelica\u2019s plight is worth more musical attention than the Federalist Papers; Eliza\u2019s domestic work and contributions to history are so important they become the focus of the finale. Neither of the two women is \u201cbad\u201d or \u201clesser.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How the women of Hamilton are changing Broadway<\/a> (Vox)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trap of the two-woman love triangle is not one that Hamilton entirely avoids. Angelica and Eliza fall neatly into the old conventional\/rebellious dichotomy. Angelica, who stands center stage as she raps, \u201cI\u2019ve been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine \/ So men say that I\u2019m intense or I\u2019m insane,\u201d is the rebellious one. Eliza, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1364,4,101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}