A Winter's Ball

In the song, “A Winter’s Ball” Aaron Burr begins singing about Hamilton’s background, how he got hired, and his skills. Burr then starts discussing that Hamilton and himself are both handsome ladies’ men. Burr continues in saying that looks are more important than power, when it comes to ladies. The song then begins to go into the fact that every man wants to marry a Schuyler sister. Burr then says to Hamilton that if he can marry a Schuyler sister, he will be rich. Hamilton responds to this by saying that for himself, it is not a matter of being able to marry a sister, it is about picking a sister to marry him. This song sets Hamilton up as a bit of a player, which makes a lot of Hamilton’s later actions make more sense and in a way sets up a chain of actions that go along with Hamilton’s character quite well. “A Winter’s Ball” is also a transition song from “Right Hand Man” to “Helpless,” where Hamilton meets his future sister-in-law Angelica, and then his future wife, Eliza.

This song additionally makes yet another link between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton by showing that they were both ladies’ men. This connects Burr and Hamilton in a whole other sense besides their backgrounds, it shows their similarities in terms of personality. I think that this is a very smart move on Miranda’s part because he is trying to make connections between these men in almost every single aspect of their lives and beings. This ultimately makes the inevitable ending of the play make more sense, because of all of the similarities that they see in each other.