“Another immigrant comin’ up from the bottom” : reframing Alexander Hamilton’s life as an immigrant narrative through hip hop and historical fiction in Miranda’s Hamilton: an American musical

Abstract

The thesis examines the libretto of Hamilton: An American Musical (2015) by Lin-Manuel Miranda and analyses how the play reframes the Founding Father Alexander Hamilton’s life as an immigrant narrative. Hamilton combines elements of hip hop and historical fiction; thus, the thesis examines how these elements affect the retelling of Alexander Hamilton’s life as an immigrant story. The thesis argues that through rap and historical fiction the play is able to examine the myth of the American Founding from a new and unique perspective. Furthermore, through the mixture of rap and historical fiction in the reframing of Hamilton’s life story as an immigrant narrative, Hamilton reinforces the idea of America as a nation of immigrant in positive regard. The thesis is divided into five main sections, first of which is the introduction to the thesis. The second section examines the idea of analyzing rap as a form of poetry. The third section discusses the common poetic devices used in rap poetry while considering how these devices appear in Hamilton. The fourth section of the thesis examines the main issues in analyzing historical fiction and discusses the issues of historical accuracy and questions of truth in Hamilton. Finally, the fifth section analyses Hamilton as an immigrant narrative. This section first focuses on the history of immigration in the United States. The section then considers how the play reframes Alexander Hamilton’s life story as an immigrant narrative. The thesis concludes with the discussion of the role of rap and historical fiction in the retelling of Hamilton’s story as an immigrant narrative.