At first glance, it’s easy to view Vashti’s role in Megillat Esther as a placeholder, since we know that her impending demise will clear the stage for Esther’s grand entrance. Yet perhaps her role is ultimately critical to frame the course of events that follow.

The Megillah tells us in perek aleph that like Achashveirosh, Vashti had a party of her own. This pasuk refers to her as Vashti HaMalka instead of HaMalka Vashti, which Malbim uses to further prove Achashveirosh’s intention to reduce Vashti’s royal blood status to just the wife of the king.   

But perhaps there is more to Vashti than what meets the eye. After all, she is the first person to defy the king, something that Achashveirosh was terrified of. The text tells us (Esther 1:12), vatima’ein hamalka Vashti, she refused to be brought to the king. Vashti’s refusal could be explained in two different ways.

Her refusal to be brought before the king was due to the way the king sent for her, i.e. with the king’s officers and against her will (Malbim 1:10). Her act of defiance was a way for her to show that she was equally as powerful, haughty and deserving of honor as Achashveirosh was.

Her refusal was due to what was requested of her, i.e., out of embarrassment of being objectified before the king. Her refusal was more passive, she didn’t mean to defy the king, yet it was the only way for her to maintain some semblance of dignity and modesty.

Regardless, Achashevierosh now needed to affirm his superiority over her and use her as an example. This means that the rest of the Megillah will be viewed through the lens of Vashti’s death and is a warning of what was in store for anyone who might disobey the king.

Vashti’s refusal to come to Achashveirosh’s party foreshadows the opposite story, in which Esther comes before the king on her own volition, when the king did not call her. The intensity grows as the reader knows what the king has done to someone who didn’t come before him, and we can only imagine what will he do to someone who does come before him without permission. Through Vashti, we are now able to understand what was so extraordinary about Esther when she risked her life to defy the king.