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, “I’ve been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine / So men say that I’m intense or I’m insane,” is the rebellious one. Eliza, who has, she tells us, “never been the type to try and grab the spotlight,” is the conventionally feminine one. And because Angelica and Eliza are the only major female characters in the show — Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds, the other two female singing parts, have one song apiece — 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.
But 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 “genteel” she must be “therefore dull,” 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.
*What makes Hamilton unique is that it recognizes the tragedy in both women’s lives*
Hamilton 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, “a girl in a world in which / my only job is to marry rich.” Her refrain throughout the show is, “I will never be satisfied,” 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’s considered less important than the political work Hamilton does. Eliza is stuck at the fringes of history, whispering, “Oh, let me be a part of the narrative,” and her refrain is, “That would be enough,” because it is her tragedy to live in a world where she is denied the little respect she asks for.
And Hamilton gives both Angelica and Eliza the space onstage to examine their tragedies. Angelica’s “Satisfied” is widely considered to be one of the best songs in the show — Rolling Stone calls it Hamilton’s “finest moment” — and the musical ends with Eliza in the spotlight and center stage, declaring, “I put myself back in the narrative.” In the world of Hamilton, Angelica’s plight is worth more musical attention than the Federalist Papers; Eliza’s domestic work and contributions to history are so important they become the focus of the finale. Neither of the two women is “bad” or “lesser.”
