The Book of Esther
The narrative of Esther and Mordecai's triumph over the pernicious Haman in the Book of Esther leaves little room for ambiguity. From the start it is clear that good will prevail: reading the Book of Esther is thus akin to watching one of the Batman movies for while there is a lot to cheer for, there is little to doubt. Through the book's presentation of a series of ironic dichotomies we see divisions between male and female, Jew and Persian, and feast and fast, which constitute a program in which the dichotomy between good and evil is only the most extreme and moralistic element. Sexuality is an underlying force that drives the plot in the beggining of the book. Which the king makes explicit when he "commanded ... the seven eunuchs who served King Ahasuerus as
Another example of irony in the book of Esther is when Mordecai's defiance of Haman creates and edict to destroy the Jews. It seems that the elements of dichotomy and irony run parallel throughout the book. Esther replies, "Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish" (4: 16). ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**. This situation's potentially tragic irony is that Esther risks death by doing precisely what Vashti refused to do, resulting in her own death: she seeks an audience with the king. He urges his niece to cross the most deadly boundary in the kingdom, which Esther describes to him: "if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law; all alike are to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live" (4: 11). This decree for Queen Vashti to reveal her overt sexualtiy is given by messengers who are spectacles in and of themselves for their lack of sexuality. This command is not important merely as a royal decree, but as a means by which Ahasuerus seeks to turn his queen into a spectacle of female sexuality. Queen Vashti, indeed, is sacrificed on the altar of the king's machismo, never to appear again. While there are many more examples of the use of irony in the Book of Esther I beileve that the ones that I chose to illustrate offer the broadest view of the different kinds of irony used in the Book of Esther. The irony of this situation is that Eunuchs which are subservient to the king relay the decree to a rebellious Queen Vashti. Indeed the obvious conclusion is that the author of the Book of Esther knew what he was doing by displaying the eventual success of good over evil through the use of irony.
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Acceptance Essays
