The Tropes of Megillat Esther 

Sarah Gorbatov 
 
Megillat Esther tells the tale of a titular heroine, a young woman who was taken to become a Persian queen. 
One of the colorful and more happening stories in the Bible, the events are commemorated by the uproarious 
festival of Purim, and the book is read in synagogue that day at an atypically noisy session. Purim itself is often 
associated with its costumes, noisemakers, wine, food, and music​—and rightly so. Yet, underneath all of this, 
something serious exists: the reading and hearing of the Scroll of Esther. Every Jew, male and female, young 
and old, is encouraged to listen intently to the reading of the sacred text and its countless motifs and 
tropes—the fundamental, recurring themes within the narrative. Twenty-six—there are twenty-six tropes 
within the story, all with different principles. Every time Haman’s name is uttered, we are expected to drown it 
out. Yet, the noise extends beyond the name, and that is why it’s all the more exciting to discover the text as 
well as its prevailing message—the cry and rejoice within the festivities.  
 
The first trope that I will dicuss—Guile Heroine—I believe to be one of the more significant and ubiquitous 
of them all. In Megillat Esther, it says, “​Esther sent back word to Mordechai: ‘Go and gather all the Jews in 
Shushan, fast for me: do not eat or drink for three days and nights. My girls and I will also fast. Then, I’ll go to 
the king—against the law—and if I am killed, I will be the only one killed.’” As exhibited by her exchange with 
Mordechai, Esther is able to keep her head above water in stressful circumstances, and her courage in this is 
what saves her people, the Jewish nation. Between Sophocles’ plays A ​ jax​ and P
​ hiloctete​s, he treats Odysseus, 
the quintessential guile hero, quite contrastingly. In the first, Odysseus prefers compromise rather than pride 
and argues for the burial rites of his worst enemy. In the second, he encourages the honest Neoptolemus to lie 
to the long-suffering Philoctetes in hopes of persuading him to come to Troy, despite the severe injustice 
Odysseus had done against him before. Generally completing a triangle with the action hero and the science 
hero, the guile hero is one who operates by playing politics and manipulating the villains. T​he guile hero trades 
swords and guns for charm, wit, political and financial acumen, as well as an in-depth knowledge of human 
nature. Often, a guile hero will puppeteer his coworkers and a group of innocent bystanders as part of his 
scheme to overthrow the central villain or wrongdoer, though he will take care to ensure that these characters 
are not truly harmed in the process. If he fails, he will be more than just regretful​—he will be 
self-incriminating.  
 
The next trope is really an amalgamation of three—the Humiliation Conga, Hoist By His Own Petard, and 
Original Position Fallacy. The quote, from Megillat Esther, that follows encapsulates the three: “Haman said 
to himself, ‘Whom would the king desire to honor more than me?’ . . . So, Haman said to the king, ‘For the 
man whom the king desires to honor, let royal garb which the king has worn be brought, and horse on which 
the king has ridden and on whose head a royal diadem has been set; and let the attire and the horse be put in 
the charge of one of the king’s noble courtiers. And, let the man whom the king desires to honor be attired and 
paraded on the horse through the city square, while they proclaim before him: ‘This is what is done for the 
man whom the king desires to honor!’ ‘Quick, then!’ said the king to Haman. ‘Get the garb and the horse, as 
you have said, and do this to Mordechai the Jew, who sits in the king’s gate. Omit nothing of all you have 
proposed.’ So Haman took the garb and the horse and arrayed Mordechai and paraded him through the city 
square, and he proclaimed before him: ‘This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor!’ . . . 
So the king and Haman came to feast with Queen Esther . . . Queen Esther replied: ‘If Your Majesty will do me 
the favor, and if it pleases Your Majesty, let my life be granted me as my wish, and my people as my request. 
For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, massacred, and exterminated. Had we only been sold 
as bondmen and bondwomen, I would have kept silent; for the adversary is not worthy of the king’s trouble.’ . 
. . ‘The adversary and enemy,’ replied Esther, ‘is this evil Haman!’ And Haman cringed in terror before the 
king and the queen. The king, in his fury, left the wine feast for the palace garden, while Haman remained to 
plead with Queen Esther for his life; for he saw that the king had resolved to destroy him. When the king 
returned from the palace garden to the banquet room, Haman was lying prostrate on the couch on which 
Esther reclined. ‘Does he mean,’ cried the king, ‘to ravish the queen in my own palace?’ No sooner did these 
words leave the king’s lips than Haman’s face was covered. Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs in attendance 
on the king, said, ‘What is more, a stake is standing at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high, which Haman made 
for Mordecai—the man whose words saved the king.’ ‘Impale him on it!’ the king ordered. So they impaled 
Haman on the stake which he had put up for Mordecai, and the king’s fury abated.” Boy does Haman ever get 
his comeuppance!? First, is a Hitler-to-Jesse-Owens mission, as he must publicly honor his hated rival 
Mordechai with an elaborate parade that he had planned when still expecting he would be the honoree. Then, 
his extravagant dinner with the king and queen emerges as a set-up to expose him as the villain. And when he 
pleads with the queen for his life, the king presumes he is assaulting her and sentences him to death right then 
and there. Haman winds up literally hoist by his own petard on the gallows he had built for Mordechai. Every 
detail of Haman’s luck spirals downhill, and thus it is not difficult to feel sympathetic for his character. In the 
live-action film ​101 Dalmatians​, written by none other than H ​ ome Alone’s o​ wn John Hughes, there are a few 
slapstick moments with Horace and Jasper as the puppies escape from the mansion and Cruella is dunked on, 
literally. In these three tropes, everything the villain has built up, piece by piece, comes crashing down before 
him. The lovebirds he kept apart so that he could have the girl for himself pass by him arm-in-arm, the hotel he 
spent millions constructing catches fire and burns down, his former Yes-man steps on his foot, the bum he 
spat on now wears a Rolex and asks him to lights his cigar, and the dog he once kicked is now laughing at him. 
People come to gawk at how the mighty have fallen, and when one starts to cackle, everyone joins in. And here 
the cop comes; turns out the mic was on when he declared his foul intentions. In the end, the villain realizes he 
is in very, very dire straits, and he is still alive, but that is not all for the good.  
 
Next, is Suddenly Ethnicity. It reads, in Megillat Esther, “Queen Esther replied: ‘If Your Majesty will do me 
the favor, and if it pleases Your Majesty, let my life be granted me as my wish, and my people as my request. 
For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, massacred, and exterminated. Had we only been sold 
as bondmen and bondwomen, I would have kept silent; for the adversary is not worthy of the king’s trouble.’” 
To terminate Haman’s planned pogrom, Esther makes the big reveal that she is, in fact, Jewish. Granted, the 
audience has known this all along, but her own husband is astonished to find out. In the Sherlock Holmes tale 
The Yellow Face​, the twist is that the yellow-masked creature is actually the client’s wife’s first child—from a 
relationship with a black man. The wife has been hiding the child in fear of what her husband’s reaction would 
be, keeping the child in a nearby house and masking her so her dark skin is not noticed. Later, the husband 
discovers the child and lifts her onto his shoulder, carries her out of the room, kisses her, and accepts her as his 
own. In this trope of Suddenly Ethnicity, a character is revealed to be . . . black. Or Asian. Or Jewish. Or any 
ethnicity that isn’t the same as that of the majority of the target audience, and naturally, the other characters in 
the narrative are shocked.  
 
After that, we have I Owe You My Life. In the Story of Esther, it says, “There it was found written that 
Mordechai had denounced Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the threshold, who 
had plotted to do away with King Ahasuerus. ‘What honor or advancement has been conferred on Mordechai 
for this?’ the king inquired. ‘Nothing at all has been done for him,’ replied the king’s servants who were in 
attendance on him.” Mordechai reveals the plot to assassinate Achashveirosh, and the king later decides to 
reward him for his service. In ​Mulan​, Mulan saves Captain Li Shang when she causes an avalanche on the 
mountain pass to decimate the Hun army. A few minutes later on in the film, after it is revealed that she is a 
woman, any woman pretending to be a member of the Imperial Army must be killed. Captain Li refuses to kill 
her, however, asserting that by sparing her life, his debt is repaid. The concept of owing one’s life to another is 
simple. Someone saves your life and you must repay them, especially if you live by a strict honor code.  
 
Finally, the last trope I would like to address is The Unseen. In the Book of Esther, it is written, “That night, 
sleep deserted the king, and he ordered the book of records, the annals, to be brought; and it was read to the 
king.” This quotation is, to me, the turning point of Esther’s narrative. King Achashveirosh is seen, for the first 
time, to be afraid of something, specifically o​ f losing Esther to Haman and his head in a coup.​ God is never 
once mentioned in the entire story, but this precise moment in the storyline serves as a great example of Him 
placing the right people in the right place at the right time—where and when they’ll ultimately be needed. In A ​  
Midsummer Night’s Dream​, the changeling boy who causes the conflict between Titania and Oberon in the 
first place, never even appears on stage in the script. In this particular trope, there is a ​character who is 
frequently referred to or sometimes just casually mentioned, but they never quite make it onscreen or into the 
text.  
 
Before there was history, there was storytelling. It’s essential to our human identity. The stories we tell are how 
we know who we are, and sharing a tale with an audience can be immensely rewarding for everyone involved. 
Yet, in order to tell a “good” story​—one that grips its listeners—tropes are crucial.​ The five tropes I have 
brought to light in this essay, along with the other twenty-one in Megillat Esther and however many else exist, 
allow a story to run smoothly and allow the action in that story’s plot to culminate in a logical fashion. One of 
the core purposes of telling a story is to take those listening, reading, or watching on an adventure from 
thinking to feeling. They challenge us emotionally, sometimes even confront us. The most powerful of stories 
engage us to such an extent that they feel personal. When a persisting theme is foregrounded in a story, not 
merely do we remain captivated and sit at the brink of our seat, but we also genuinely enjoy the story.