The Red Tent

Content Warning: The Red Tent mentions domestic abuse, sexual abuse and assault (including incest), slavery, and torture. It also depicts death by childbirth, infant abandonment and death (including miscarriage and stillborn birth), suicidal ideation, and the aftermath of murder and suicide.

Because “[the] chain connecting mother to daughter was broken” (1), Dinah’s story is considered a footnote, and she herself a victim. She describes her four mothers (her birth mother Leah and three aunts Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah), who were delighted to have a daughter who could inherit their stories. Dinah’s story is remembered as nothing more than “a few mangled details about those weeks in Shechem” (2), when she actually lived a full life, was a midwife, and was loved.

Rachel reports that she met a man (Jacob) at the family well, who says he is a cousin and will marry her. She has not yet reached menarche, the threshold into womanhood, so she cannot marry. Jacob formally greets Rachel and her sisters’ father, Laban, and notices the oldest sister, Leah. Leah is not considered beautiful because she has heterochromia, but is sturdy and strong.