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The Enchantress In Say No To This By Alexander Hamilton

1952 Words8 Pages

2.4 The Enchantress
In two poems Alexander wrote during his youth in the Caribbean, Hamilton expresses two very different positions on women and love. One is idealistic, painting women as almost angelic creatures, the other one employs a very different tone, painting women as dangerous sirens. Hamilton’s early visions of love stuck with him throughout his life, as he seemed to be drawn towards two kinds of women, the agreeable and grounded type that perfectly described his wife Eliza, and the more scandalous kind embodied by his mistress, Maria Reynolds.

Even during his marriage Hamilton had often engaged in flirtatious conversations with women. However, there is no evidence of any infidelity until the day Maria Reynolds walked into his office, telling him a tale of an abusive husband who had now abandoned her, leaving her help- and moneyless. Due to the hardships his mother had had to endure after James Hamilton had left her on St. Croix, Alexander was drawn towards women in need, always being eager to help them. As is explained in the song Say No To This, the young woman came to Hamilton, appealing to his “humanity”, as he described it himself. When he went to visit her at her house later that night to give her a bank bill, he realized that “other than …show more content…

The narrative reappears at the end of The Adams Administration, when Burr, Jefferson and Madison decide to use an unspecified piece of information to hurt Hamilton politically (“Let’s let him know what we know”). In the following number, We Know, the Republicans confront Hamilton with alleged evidence of him mistreating government money. In response, Hamilton confesses to having had an affair and having been subjected to blackmail, and he provides proof in form of the letter James Reynolds had send him in Say No To

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