The Lady or the Tiger is a short story written by Frank R. Stockton. The story is about how love can be difficult and decisions are not always right. The king was known for being rather cruel to people he doesn’t like. He would put people he didn’t like into an arena and force them to choose a door. One door led to a woman the king saw fit for him to marry, and the other led to a tiger that would eat them alive. When the king discovered his daughter had a lover, he put him in the arena. The girl he was might have married, however, was the princess’ worst enemy. He asked the princess for help, and she gave a subtle clue to choose the door on the right. The story doesn’t tell us what happened to the man, and only ends with the narrator asking us what we thought had come out from the door. This story is short, but contains many elements that make it interesting.
The main theme of this story is that trust is a very powerful thing. This is because the man trusted the princess so much that he did what she signalled for him to do. The story was written in a style of suspense. Due to the fact that the author doesn’t tell which door contains what, the readers are left wondering what happened to the lover. The king is considered semi-barbaric, because his so-called “punishment” could be good as well. The choice in the arena was to judge if a person was innocent of a crime or not. What goes on in the arena isn’t supposed to be considered entertainment, but the audience treated it like it was a game. They even say that they expect a tragic death or a hilarious wedding. From this unfair trial, we can see the people’s indifference towards human life. They didn’t care about whether the person in question was guilty or not. I think that the people in the kingdom should not be considered civilized. They didn’t care about the well-being of the victim or the victim’s family. The people that were sent into the arena were either expecting death or the loss of their entire life. The king would force them to marry the women even if they were already in a relationship. Living is a basic human right, and they are taking that away from the victims, meaning that they don’t respect people’s rights to live. If this is how they treat people, how can you call them civilized? The people and their king should not be thought of as humane.
The princess and the lover cared for each other a lot, but they did have some problems. The dilemma is that the princess’ jealousy might be stronger than her love for the man. I believe that the lover didn’t notice how the princess was jealous, and put his trust in her completely. The conflict in the story is that the fate of the lover doesn't rely on god, but on the princess. The princess knew the lover would listen to her. If she pointed for him to open a specific door, he would have done it. The princess’ internal conflict is another big issue. She would never be able to get a satisfactory ending for her life because either choice the lover made, she would never be able to have him. The princesses’ love will undoubtedly end tragically, but the lover’s fate can be influenced to be good or bad. The princess’s love for the lover is very strong, but her jealousy for the lady might overpower her love. The irony is that the princess might be the most powerful person besides the king, she is still not able to change her destiny into being able to stay with her lover. Both the lover and the princess will not be able to stay together, even though they love each other so much. The king and the audience wouldn’t care about what happens to her after the man makes the choice. The dissidence is a main part of the building up of this story.
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