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Act 1: Stay Alive
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
To prepare for the duel, Burr, Hamilton, Laurens and the company lay out “The Ten Duel Commandments.” First, each party demands “satisfaction”; if one person apologizes, the duel is off. If nobody apologizes, the duel moves ahead, and each man nominates a “second”: a friend who can negotiate for him, so as to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
This complicated set of rules, based on a real concept known as the code duello, reflects just how much men of this time obsessed over their reputations. In addition to giving audience members a sense of the high stakes behind honor culture, the word “satisfaction” gains a new layer of meaning (on top of the ones it had in “Satisfied”).
Themes
If the seconds can’t reach a peace, then the duelers hire a doctor and get some pistols. The next step is to pick a time and place (usually before dawn and in an isolated area). When it’s time for the actual duel, the two parties look each other in the eye, turn back-to-back, walk 10 paces in the opposite directions—and then turn toward each other and fire.
Just as “satisfied” can have many meanings, here the word “shot”—which was so hopeful in the song “My Shot”—takes on a much deadlier connotation.
Themes
