Before reading Magillat Esther, I knew the story pretty well. I'm a private school child. I was actually excited to read the story becuase I knew it was something I would be able to comprehend. I thought I would be able to read quickly through it, which I was able to. One of the things that I found interesting was Waldman's personality portrayal of Esther.
In school when I first learned about Eshter, she was taught as a quiet, modest woman yet strong in her faith. Waldman actually seems to contridict this idea which made me a little uneasy. There was one part in the story where Malachi and Esther are exchanging messages back and forth. Esther seems a little sassy with one message which I was shocked to see! This sweet woman who did everything she was told does have a temper!
Esther's overall physical apperence in the novel does not fit the tiny, timid girl I pictured either. She is a curvaceous, taller woman. Which nothing is wrong with it just contridicts the traditional, in my mind traditional, image of Esther. I actually prefer to imagine Esther the way she was portrayed in the novel because it makes more sense. She had to be strong, look at the things she had to do!
1. Keep her identity a secret
2. Being kidnapped to the palace and then being there by herself only to be a kind of an object for the king's pleasure
3. She had to go to the king, without permission, which was punishable by death!
Waldman's Esther is my new role model.
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