"To restore its most plausible readings, to understand how the book was meant to be read, we must approach Esther as the comedy that it is. I want to press the point through a discussion of comedy because even commentators who recognize the comic nature of Esther do not take it into account sufficiently when they interpret the book. The comic aspects of the book are not incidental, merely to provide comic relief; they are the essence of the book. They define the genre of the book, and thus set the parameters according to which we should read it. We cannot appreciate the story fully unless we realize that it is meant to be funny."
--Adele Berlin, Esther