Burr by Gore Vidal

First published: 1973

Type of plot: Historical chronicle

Time of work: 1776-1840

Locale: New York, Washington, D.C., and the western states and territories

Principal Characters:

• Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson, killer of Alexander Hamilton in a duel (July 11, 1804), tried for treason (March 30, 1807)
• Eliza Bowen Jumel, Burr’s second wife
• Charles Schuyler, Burr’s biographer and a journalist and law student
• Helen Jewett, Schuyler’s mistress
• William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post
• William Leggett, Schuyler’s editor at the Evening Post
• Washington Irving, a famous American writer, diplomat, and adviser to Schuyler
• George Washington, Burr’s commanding officer during the American Revolution
• Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s aide, later Secretary of the Treasury and Burr’s political foe
• Andrew Jackson, friendly to Burr, hostile to the Jeffersonians
• James Madison, Jefferson’s protégé and part of what Burr calls the “Virginia junto”
• John Marshall, Supreme Court Justice, disaffected cousin to Jefferson, who presided over Burr’s treason trial
• John Randolph, a Virginia politician who is cool to Jefferson and a significant factor in Burr’s acquittal
• James Wilkinson, at first Burr’s ally in an effort to conquer Mexico, then Jefferson’s tool in the treason trial

The Novel

Burr begins on July 1, 1833, with a special dispatch from the New York Evening Post announcing the marriage of “Colonel Aaron Burr, aged seventy-seven” to “Eliza Jumel, born Bowen fifty-eight years ago (more likely sixty-five but remember: she is prone to litigation!).” The author of the dispatch, and narrator of the novel, is Charles Schuyler, who is studying law under Burr, an attorney still active in the affairs of love and politics. Schuyler’s narrative intended to resolve some of the confusion and the conflicting claims that mark historical accounts of Burr’s controversial career, while not pretending to offer the ultimate truth about the man. As Burr himself will suggest, the printed history of his affairs has been unreliable; the point of Schuyler’s dispatch is that even at this late stage in his subject’s life, accurate information is difficult to obtain and to publish on a figure who refers to the legend of himself as “the hellish Aaron Burr [who] meant single-handedly to disband the United States.”

Vidal has wisely chosen not to present Burr’s life in strict chronological order. The most fascinating and historically significant period of the protagonist’s life is over by his fiftieth year, and while Burr’s personality remains intriguing, his last thirty years are of minor importance and are telescoped into a few pages of Schuyler’s speculations about how Burr has coped with his infamous past.

Like many historical novels, Burr puts one historical period inside of another, so that one acts as a frame for the other, and the reader’s sense of history, of how one period develops into the next, is superbly enriched. The novel’s past covers the years of the Revolution and the first three presidential administrations by presenting Burr’s point of view in twenty-one autobiographical installments that Schuyler edits and that are inserted into the ongoing narrative.

The novel’s present, 1833-1836, is the era of the second administration of Andrew Jackson, in which political maneuvering has already begun to ensure that Vice President Martin Van Buren will succeed to the nation’s highest office. Schuyler is employed by William Leggett (bent on discrediting Van Buren) to write about Burr in the hope of proving that Van Buren is Burr’s illegitimate son. Yet Schuyler finds Burr admirable because he is free of the usual cant and hypocrisy associated with politicians and generously admits his errors. Schuyler proves to be the perfect narrator, since he is forced to explore all sides of Burr and is unaware, until the last page of the novel, of his true relation to his subject. In other words, Schuyler is the classic hero of historical fiction as it was first developed by Sir Walter Scott. He is part of the action but also removed from it; he is connected to a losing cause (the Burrites who still think their chief was correct in trying to liberate Mexico and the West), but he is also very much a man of the present, somewhat aloof from politics but nevertheless drawn into political intrigue.

By giving his novel a double time frame, Vidal is able to demonstrate that Burr’s forthright opportunism is hardly what makes him a unique figure in American history. On the contrary, Burr and the other founding fathers set up a factionalized political system that was responsible for the scheming that Schuyler cannot avoid. Burr was not extraordinary for his faults but was necessary as a scapegoat for Thomas Jefferson and others who wanted to mask their own motivations in building an American empire.

The Characters

The character studies in Burr are extraordinarily vivid and often amusing. George Washington is portrayed as an inept military commander but an astute politician who realized at an early age that he would have to play the aloof, austere, American “god.” Thomas Jefferson is a canting hypocrite of the highest order, who nevertheless earns Burr’s accolade as the greatest politician and empire builder of his age. James Madison, aware of Jefferson’s duplicity, is treated as a complex figure doggedly loyal to his mentor and most impressive in his subtle construction of constitutional principles. John Marshall appears as a titanic figure in support of the Constitution, yet he is not immune to fears of his cousin Jefferson’s efforts to undermine the chief justice and the United States Supreme Court. Alexander Hamilton, fiercely ambitious and contentious, finally goes too far (perhaps sensing his political failure in New York, which leads to Burr’s leadership of the Federalists) in accusing Burr, not of political impropriety, but of incest with his beloved daughter Theodosia.

In Burr, politics and personalities are finely fused, so that it is not certain whether Hamilton and Burr fight over personal or political insults. Both men, it is clear, are deeply disappointed when they do not achieve their highest ambitions. While the novel is dominated by Burr’s obviously partisan view of his opponents, it is clear from the dialogue between Burr and other political figures and from the questions that Schuyler asks him that Burr’s central failing has been his inability to articulate his understanding of the Constitution and of his country’s future. What puts Jefferson ahead of Burr is not simply his superior maneuvering for power; rather, Jefferson enunciates, however ambiguously, a national purpose that transcends his own person. Burr, on the other hand, has depended throughout his life on the personal loyalty of his followers. In his own words, Burr has been too frank in admitting that he is “equivocal” on the Constitution.

Critical Context

Burr is one of a series of novels by Vidal providing a lively and incisive history of the American republic. Considered by many critics to be the finest of his historical fictions, Burr was followed by 1876 (1976) and Lincoln (1984). An earlier novel, Washington, D.C. (1967), centers on politics in the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Of these novels, Burr has the most complex narrative structure and the smoothest integration of fictional and historical characters.

Charles Schuyler is fictional, and his own story, involving an intricate balancing of private and political life, is the Burr story in a minor key. Historical novelists often have difficulty making their passive heroes, who are usually devoted to domestic life and unwillingly involved in historical epochs, sufficiently interesting, but Schuyler is like a more modest Burr in his adventuring, in his sad affair with Helen Jewett, a prostitute whom he tries to live with and marry. Schuyler has almost betrayed Burr, as did James Wilkinson, who turned into Jefferson’s stooge, and Schuyler almost becomes William Leggett’s lackey in the plot to bring down Van Buren, who is Burr’s protégé.

For the most part, Vidal has stuck to the facts and to the chronology of history, since it is his purpose not only to entertain but also to advance provocative notions concerning the motivations of historical figures, notions of a kind that historians, relying only on data and guarding their professional reputation, are reluctant to venture. Extrapolating from the known personalities of historical figures, he creates dialogue and description that capture history in the making.

Bibliography

Baker, Susan, and Curtis S. Gibson. Gore Vidal: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. A biographical sketch precedes a general discussion of Vidal’s early writings, followed by critical discussions of individual novels. The discussions include sections on plot and character development, thematic issues, narrative style, and critical approaches. Includes an essay on Burr.

Goodman, Walter. “History as Fiction.” The New Leader 71 (May 16, 1988): 11-12. Vidal defends himself against critics who charge that his books are “unhistorical or antihistorical exercises.” Although Goodman believes that the harsh criticism is unwarranted, he argues that Vidal’s novels should “best be taken for what they are, which is something different from history.”

Parini, Jay, ed. Gore Vidal: Writer Against the Grain. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. A collection of essays by various critics that covers the important works of Vidal’s career. An interesting overview that places Vidal’s historical fiction within the context of the entire body of his work.

Vidal, Gore. “The Importance of Being Gore.” Interview by Andrew Kopkind. The Nation 257 (July 5, 1993): 16-19. Vidal discusses the influence of his same-sex orientation on his work. Although he does not specifically discuss Burr, he does give examples from history where the sexual preference of certain important figures could have been a factor in determining the course of events.

Vidal, Gore. Interview by Jay Parini. The New England Review 14 (Fall 1991): 93-101. Vidal talks about his career as a novelist and television scriptwriter. He cites writers who have influenced him, including Jonathan Swift and William Golding. He also shares his views on contemporary literary criticism. A revealing interview that offers valuable insight into Vidal’s artistic motivations.