Ester, A New Perspective

I will start off my post by asking all of you to be upstanding citizens and spell Ester like that and not like "Esther". The "h" is unnecessary and evil, and, furthermore, is not present in my middle name which is spelled "Ester" with no h. 

Up until now we have read books that have been pretty unfamiliar to us. I'll speak for myself when I say that I hardly even knew that Kohelet existed before this class (and I think that many of you probably feel the same way). I vaguely remember my mom coming home one Sukkot and saying, "Wow, Racheli. Kohelet is so powerful," or something like that, but otherwise... completely clueless. As for Eicha, I read it for the first time this summer on Tisha B'av, and I didn't really read all of it then because it kind've disturbed me. Too much scary-isms, baby-eatings, and what-nots. So mostly I just sat there and listened until it was over. Right. So, like I said, the two books that we read previously were almost completely foreign to us. This made it easy to dive into them with eager eyes and open ears. Everything we learned was new and interesting. Even though we had our hunches for how the Sefarim would end, we were still surprised by all the twists and turns in each sefer. We questioned things we didn't understand and allowed ourselves to become frustrated with some of the material. All in all, it was awesome, wasn't it?

So here's the problem: we've all already heard of Megillat Ester. We've been told the story since we were young and acting it out in kindergarten. Most of us go to megillah reading every year and skim over the text at least one of the two readings every year (let's face it- it's more boring if you don't follow along with the story). We have all these preconceived notions about Ester.. how are we supposed to view it from an open perspective? How are we supposed to forget about the midrashim that have been taught to us as facts since first grade? I don't know. I don't have the answers. It's going to be very difficult, I think. But I'm excited to see what Mrs. Perl does with this megillah. I am certain that by the time we are finished, we will see Ester in a different way somehow... but I'm not quite sure how exactly yet. 

What do you guys think? Do you agree with me and think that it will be difficult reading this sefer with new eyes? Or do you think you're ready to throw away all old ideas and take in Ester from a fresh perspective? Can you even separate midrash from fiction in this story? 

I thought I'd share this because I thought it was too funny.