She was either executed or banished for her refusal to appear at the king's banquet to show her beauty as Ahasuerus wished, and was succeeded as queen by Esther, a Jew.

In the Midrash, Vashti is described as wicked and vain; she is viewed as an independent-minded heroine in feminist theological interpretations of the Purim story.

Attempts to identify her as one of the Persian royal consorts mentioned in extra-biblical records remain speculative.

Ahasuerus takes Memucan's advice, and sends letters to all of the provinces that men should dominate in their households.

[7] In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Bible commentators attempted to identify Vashti with Persian queens mentioned by the Greek historians.

Jacob Hoschander, supporting the traditional identification, suggested that Vashti may be identical to a wife of Artaxerxes mentioned by Plutarch, named Stateira.

They attribute her unwillingness to appear before the king and his drinking partners not to modesty, but rather to an affliction with a disfiguring illness.

One account relates that she suffered from leprosy, while another states that the angel Gabriel came and "fixed a tail on her."

Since the noble women of the kingdom would be present at her banquet, she would have control of a valuable group of hostages in case a coup d'état occurred during the king's feast.

Vashti was justly punished for enslaving young Jewish women and compelling them to work nude on the Sabbath (ib.).

[10] Vashti's refusal to obey the summons of her drunken husband has been admired as heroic in many feminist interpretations of the Book of Esther.

"[11] Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that Vashti "added new glory to [her] day and generation...by her disobedience; for 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.