Palaces Out Of Paragraphs

By: Zac Frederick

For this blog I’ve decided to take a closer look at each King George’s three songs “You’ll Be Back,” “What Comes Next?” and “I Know Him” and how each, though sung to the same tune, conveys a different meaning overall.

In “You’ll Be Back,” King George offers the colonists the message that their little rebellion will fail, and warns them in an emotional manner not to betray his love for them. While initially a seemingly romantic account of their relationship, he contrasts this notion both in the song and in reality by “send[ing] a fully armed battalion” to remind the colonists of his love. How beautiful.

“What Comes Next?” gives King George the opportunity to berate the Americans once again by telling them that they will fail a second time. This song depicts yet another emotional response to the situation across the pond, as he spats “You’re on your own / Awesome. Wow” and allows George to retain his position of power, as he is assured that the new country is destined to fail.

“I Know Him” depicts a shift in both the message and position of King George. No longer is George in any position to criticize with the upper hand, as he becomes the weaker party “perplexed” by how Washington is simply going to step down. Of course, he still believes that the Americans are destined to fail, but it is worth arguing that his credibility as an evaluator of the situation is in a way completely irrelevant. Any rational arguments he had in the first two songs have been reduced to bitter bickering from a behind the times king who himself admits that he “wasn’t aware that was something a person could do.” His relevancy and grip on the Americas – be that through military might or fear of failure – no longer exists and thus his necessity, even as a narrator, becomes nonexistent.

Thus, it becomes necessary for King George’s departure, so as it happens in the play.

by Noah Hammond

While listening to the Hamilton soundtrack on Spotify and keeping up with what happens in the musical, I’m impressed with how well it tells a complete and interesting story. Reading and studying history from a textbook can get tiresome, so the fact that Hamilton can tell the story of Hamilton with modern-sounding soundtrack is quite a feat. Miranda’s ability to have the characters personalities and motives shine through in their songs makes the story of Hamilton easy and enjoyable to follow.

I’ve been reading Game of Thrones recently and I can see a lot of similarities to Hamilton with how the stories are told. Both utilize the characters in the story to draw the audience in and get them to care about what happens to the characters and their goals. There is even parallels between the stories in the political sense. Characters clash with each other when their goals conflict and there are big consequences for almost all characters that try to get involved.

The thing that is significant about Hamilton and where I believe it gets a lot of its popularity from is that it tells the story in a form that approachable and already popular for a lot of people today. Hip-Hop has almost taken over the music industry and has so many different forms that nearly anyone can enjoy the soundtrack of Hamilton. It also has a diverse cast which helps attract more attention for being a unique and progressive group of people. All of these things combine to make Hamilton an extremely popular musical that has taken the country’s attention and held it for awhile. The price of tickets to see the musical is evidence enough of that.

By Grace Griggs

As pointed out in “A Singularity in Blue” Hamilton paints a fairly rosy picture of the Founding Fathers. Hamilton’s purpose is more to reframe the narrative of the American Revolution than it is to show an accurate version of the revolutionaries themselves. To this extent, the events and characters of the show should be taken, like anything “based on a true story”, with a grain of salt. Regardless of this, it is inevitable that a certain segment of the audience will take it for granted that Hamilton is completely historically accurate so it is important to pay attention to how characters are portrayed.

One questionable portrayal is that of General Charles Lee (below), who is introduced in “Stay Alive” with the line “I’m a general! Wheeee!”. Lee is presented as not only “inexperienced and ruinous”, but also as childish. Given Lee went on to slander Washington and damage the revolutionary cause, it makes sense that a story told from Hamilton’s perspective would view Lee this way. However, prior to the Battle of Monmouth fiasco, the historical Lee was a successful and well respected general. He was in the running for Washington’s position as Commander in Chief, but was turned down, in part because he wished to be compensated for English property he gave up when he joined rebellion, whereas Washington would work for free. This is clearly not the General Lee we see in Hamilton and it is not made clear whether the character is supposed to be the historical Lee or Lee as seen by Hamilton.

In comparison, the bias of the narrative is made explicit in “Say No to This” where the story is being told solely from Hamilton’s perspective. All of Maria Reynolds’ lines are preceded with an attributive from Hamilton like “she said”. The historical record of the events between Alexander and Maria is based entirely on Hamilton’s version of the events, where he painted Maria as a seductive caricature in order to absolve himself of guilt. It is clear that this is not supposed to represent Maria herself, but the way history views her through the lens of Hamilton’s writing.

While both of these depictions could be considered uncharitable at best, Maria’s characterization never strays into questionable territory because it is explicitly a biased caricature of the actual Maria Reynolds. Lee, on the other hand, is portrayed as a buffoon, without that same explicit purpose. It would be incredibly easy for an audience member to come away viewing the historical Lee as the caricature presented in the show. So, do the creators of a work like Hamilton have a responsibility to accurately and charitably represent historical figures? Are the legacies of the long dead worth protecting at the expense of artistic liberties? For figures like Lee, who is relatively obscure and became disgraced before his death, does it matter if his reputation is further tarnished 200 years later? I can’t answer these questions, but it seems important that they get asked.

By: Clarisa Colton

I don’t know if I can quite draw a parallel between Hamilton’s relentless pursuit of his work and my experience at Tech. Not that I don’t work hard – I feel like I do at least – but I feel like Hamilton’s life at age 19 differs so much from my own, as well as most other Tech students. For example, when Hamilton was just 20 (ok, maybe 22) he was first appointed as Washington’s aide. I feel like the kind of work that gets a person from where Hamilton started to there is not the kind of work I can possibly parallel with my own.

One thing that had really fascinated me throughout the musical is the fact that all these things (albeit slightly dramatized) are real things that happened. For me, it’s nearly impossible to reconcile the things that go on in the musical to someone’s real life. I think it goes to show how different things are today. In today’s world, I do not believe what Hamilton was able to accomplish at his age would be feasible. Although the age to be a United States Representative is 25 (Hamilton’s age when first on Congress), the youngest person currently a member of the House of Representatives is 33 – nearly 10 years older than Hamilton was. And I’m sure their efforts were relentless to get there.

As I listened and watched Hamilton, part of me considered how little I feel I’ve done compared to Hamilton, and others in the musical, I’ve realized it’s not really fair to compare myself to them. Today is a much different United States than was back then, and Hamilton himself was probably 1 in a million. But still, it’s incredible to learn the extent of what Hamilton was able to accomplish in his brief 47 (or 49) years.

I guess there are some people who you could compare him to – people like Steve Jobs. You know, those guys who are/were so incredibly smart and passionate about what they did that they excel beyond anyone else. So, in that sense, there are parallels that can be drawn between him and more contemporary people – but not your average Tech Student for sure.

By: Keval Bollavaram

Reading through the genius.com annotations of Alexander Hamiltonand researching founding fathers for my historical annotation project, I am surprised at how young some of the founding fathers were when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Hamilton himself was only 21 years old, and Aaron Burr was 20. This has led me to ponder whether the percentage of young ambitious minds who “take their shot” early on in their lives has diminished over the last few centuries. After comparing the accomplishments of Alexander Hamilton and other founding fathers when they were young to the early achievements of highly successful and influential people today, I believe that many successful people today still had much talent and ambition in their youth.

However, it is important to realize that the problems faced by the founding fathers are drastically different than those encountered by the leaders of today. Take, for example, Elon Musk—the founder of SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and many other innovative organizations—at just 28 years of age he became a founding member in PayPal, which is now one of the biggest online payment services in the world. Like Hamilton, Musk had fierce competition from his peers who he did not always see eye to eye with. Musk had to overcome being ousted as CEO due to his desire to switch from the Unix platform to Microsoft. He would go on to create the aforementioned companies.

Another innovator who started young, Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, started Amazon as an online book rental service. During the early days of his company, he would deliver books himself. Similarly to Hamilton, Bezos did not have strong familial support when he was young. He had a teen mother who divorced his biological father before giving Jeff up for adoption. Below is a video of Jeff Bezos during the early days of Amazon.

While the leaders of today did not have to fight for independence, they did have to overcome major hurdles in order to establish their vision and impart it on the world.

By Ahad Khatri

 

While listening to the musical “Hamilton”, a rising sophomore at the Georgia Institute of Technology was able to form a relationship between Alexander Hamilton’s uncanny ability to write rapidly, as if he was “running out of time” (“Non-Stop”), and the student’s own ability to progress through a specific midterm, as if he had very little time to waste. One could call this student Habib; however, one could also think of Habib as a procrastinator on the day before his exam, because he waited until he had as little time left as possible to study.

 

Hamilton’s ability to write and act impulsively ruins the lives of the people, such as Eliza, central to his life. To elaborate, Hamilton does have an affair with Maria Reynolds, the events occurring in “Say No To This”. Eliza discovers the happenings behind this scandalous event in a pamphlet and chooses to erase herself “from the narrative” (“Burn”). Even though Hamilton had gained so much popularity and support from his friends, one mistake was enough to lead to his disastrous end.

 

After listening to these songs, Habib can only think of the BMED 2210 midterm he had the day before, the one time he woke up and showed up late for his exam, when he had perfect attendance and a high A in the class. He took the test as if he was trying to write his way out of it; he just wanted to go home. A few days later, Habib was woken up to screams from his mother and father, showing him the 70 that he received on his midterm. He came back to Georgia Tech the day after with a feeling of despair, a feeling that he had just ruined his own life (his GPA, in reality), and not necessarily the lives of the people around him.

 

But like Hamilton, Habib was always a man of willpower, so he knew that one single midterm was not going to let him get in the way of three more years of potential success, and a diploma he wanted to hold in his hands in 2021. Likewise, Habib thought of Hamilton’s dreams of rising from the bottom, rising from a world of apparent failure to success and support.

 

Even after the death of Phillip, Eliza forgave Hamilton (“It’s Quiet Uptown”), because Hamilton was regretful for his actions, for the one time that the story he wrote for himself was not perfect. Habib took inspiration from this story, and connected it to his present state; he was confident that his parents would forgive him, and that he would forgive himself if he did better on his next midterm. So Habib, like Hamilton, decided to take his failure as a lesson, improve his writing skills, build a stronger relationship with the time he has, and move on to a better place.