The Lady or the Tiger?

Summary
Stockton's "The Lady, or the Tiger?" is set in a kingdom ruled by a "semi-barbaric" king who is a
fanciful and unpredictable man. The king has dreamt up a justice system that is based entirely on
chance. He has built a public arena where men accused of a crime must choose one of two doors.
Behind one of the doors is a lady; behind the other is a tiger. If the prisoner chooses the door with
the tiger, he is assumed to be guilty, and he will be eaten in front of the entire kingdom. On the
other hand, if he chooses the door with the lady, he is presumed innocent, and he marries the lady
right there on the spot.
The king's beautiful daughter has a personality that is very similar to his. Unbeknownst to him,
she falls in love with a courtier, who is far below her in status. When the king finds out about this
relationship, he is enraged. He puts the courtier on trial and will let his system of "poetic justice"
decide the youth's fate. He searches his kingdom for the most ferocious tiger and the most beautiful
lady. On the day of the courtier's trial, everyone in the kingdom gathers in the amphitheater.
When the courtier steps into the amphitheater, he bows to the king but his eyes are on the princess.
He knows the princess's character and knows that she would have gone to great lengths to know
what each door is concealing. The princess also knows the identity of the lady hiding behind the
door: it is a beautiful lady of whom the princess is quite jealous. The courtier and the princess's
eyes meet. He asks her with a glance which door he should choose. The princess makes a miniature
gesture towards the door on the right. The courtier marches forward and chooses that door without
hesitation.
We are not told what was behind the door that the princess chose for her former lover. Did she
choose to send him to death in order to avoid giving him away to another? Or, in order to spare
her lover's life, did she seal her own heartbreak to watch the one she loves marry another? In the
end, the question is posed to the reader: what do you think came out of that door? The lady, or the
tiger?
The Lady or the Tiger? Character List
The king
The character with the most power in "The Lady, or The Tiger?" is the king. He is described by
the story's narrator as being "semi-barbaric." He comes from a long line of barbaric ancestors but
has also been educated by his Latin neighbors. This leads to certain contradictions in the way that
he thinks. The narrator explains that the king's ideas, "though somewhat polished and sharpened
by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled" (45).
The king is prone to "exuberant fancy" and has so much power that he can often turn his "varied
fancies into facts" (45). The king does not ask others for advice and instead merely clears his
decisions with himself: "when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done" (45).

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The king's character is "bland and genial" no matter what happens in the kingdom, even when
things are going wrong (45). This is because even when things are off-course, nothing pleases the
king so much as to make things right.
The king is fond of the idea of the public arena, an idea which has come from the kingdom's Latin
neighbors. The king has built an enormous arena in his kingdom where he tries men who have
been accused of a crime. Those men, who are important enough to interest the king, must choose
between two doors: one of which hides a tiger that will eat him and the other of which hides a lady
whom the man will immediately marry. The king's power is so absolute that it does not matter if
the man is already married or does not want to marry the maiden. The king does not let anything
come in the way of his form of justice: "the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to
interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward" (46).
When the king finds out that his daughter is in love with a courtier, he sends his courtier to trial in
the public arena. The king, as well as the rest of the kingdom, knows that the courtier has already
committed the crime of loving the princess. However, the king will not let anything interfere with
his tribunal, "in which he [takes] such great delight and satisfaction" (48).
The princess
The princess is the beautiful daughter of the king. Like her father, she is half barbaric and half
civilized. She is like her father in character; the narrator notes that she has "a soul as fervent and
imperious as [the king's] own" (47). The king loves his daughter more than any other person.
The princess falls in love with a member of the king's court who is below her in status. She sees
very many good qualities in her lover and loves him "with an ardor that had enough of barbarism
in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong" (47).
When the king finds out about their affair and sentences the princess's lover to trial, her character
compels her to find out what is hiding behind each door in the arena. Her barbarism also draws her
to watch the event herself: "her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an
occasion in which she was so terribly interested" (48). The princess has been consumed with
thoughts about the trial and has not thought of anything else for several nights and several days.
Not only does the princess discover which door is hiding the lady and which the tiger, but she also
finds out the identity of the lady whom her lover would be forced to marry. As it happens, the
princess despises this lady: "with the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long
lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that
silent door" (49).
Ultimately, the princess's lover asks her with a glance which door he should choose. She subtly
points towards the door on the right. The princess's choice—whether to send her lover to his death
or to be forced to watch him marry another—is at the center of the psychological question posed
by "The Lady, or The Tiger?" The princess has lost her lover forever, but will she allow another
to have him? Knowing what you know about the princess, what do you think?

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The courtier
The young man with whom the princess falls in love is a member of the king's court. He is
handsome and brave. As the narrator of the story notes, his character is very similar to the love
interest found in countless romances throughout history: "Among [the king's] courtiers was a
young man of that fineness of blood and lowness of station common to the conventional heroes of
romance who love royal maidens" (47).
This young man has done something that no other person in his kingdom has ever done before: he
dared to love the princess. As a result of his crimes, he is sent to trial, where he must choose a door
hiding a lady or a tiger. The king thinks this is an appropriate solution to the courtier's crime—
even though the whole kingdom knows what he did—because either way the problem of the
courtier will be solved. Either he will be killed, or he will be married to another.
The lady behind the door
When the princess's lover enters the arena, he must choose one of two doors. One of them hides a
lady whom the princess knows and hates. She is "one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of
the court" (49). Not only is she incredibly beautiful, but she has also demonstrated interest in the
courtier in the past. The princess has "seen, or imagined that she had seen, this fair creature
throwing glances of admiration" towards the courtier (49).
The Lady or the Tiger? Themes
Barbarism vs Civilization
The question of barbarism vs civilization is a major theme in "The Lady, or the Tiger?" Throughout
the story, characters are described as "barbaric" to the extent that they are not easily controlled and
are given to extreme emotional passion. In contrast, they are described as "civilized" insofar as
their behavior is seen as educated and refined.
The king is equal parts barbaric and civilized. Thus, he is "semi-barbaric." In other words, neither
force gains the power to determine his character completely. The civilized half of his character has
been influenced by "distant Latin neighbors" who have helped to polish and sharpen his ideas (45).
Additionally, he has adopted the idea of the public arena from his Latin neighbors. This method
of judgment also reduces his barbarism. Despite this, the barbaric half of the king's character is
obvious. His ideas are "large, florid, and untrammeled" and he is "a man of exuberant fancy" (45).
Whatever the king decides on becomes a fact as a result of his great power.
The most immediate expression of the king's barbarism is how he uses the idea of the public arena
in his kingdom. Rather than make it a place where the kingdom can enjoy a public celebration or
the arts, he turns it into the kingdom's court of justice. In the public arena, prisoners must choose
between two doors, leaving their fate up to chance. Should the prisoner choose the door hiding a
tiger, the entire kingdom must then witness the prisoner's bloody death. This form of "justice"
reflects the king's barbarism, as he greatly enjoys the spectacle of watching the prisoner be forced
to unwittingly choose his own fate. The narrator explains how the arena works: "the fate of the
accused person would be decided in the king's arena, a structure which well deserved its name,

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for, although its form and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the
brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he owed more
allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of human thought and
action the rich growth of his barbaric idealism" (46).
Like the king, the kingdom is "semi-barbaric" as well. The king's subjects greatly enjoy this system
of justice, which appeals to their barbarism but which also "refine[s]" and "culture[s]" their minds
(45).
The king's daughter, the princess, is also "semi-barbaric." The narrator describes her as a young
woman "as blooming as [the king's] most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and imperious
as his own" (47). The princess's barbarism causes her to passionately love her lover: "she loved
him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong"
(47). It is thanks to the princess's barbarism that she is in the arena watching her lover choose his
fate: "had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature it is probable that lady would not
have been there, but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent from an occasion
in which she was so terribly interested" (48). Additionally, the princess's barbarism is what causes
her to hate the lady hiding behind the door whom her lover might wed: “The girl was lovely, but
she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the
savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the
woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door” (49).
Because "The Lady, or the Tiger?" ends on a question, we are not sure if the princess succumbed
to the "barbaric" or "civilized" side of herself. The "barbaric" side would likely have influenced
her to send her lover to his death over having to share him with a lady whom she hates. Her
"civilized" side might have led her to save him, choosing her own heartbreak over her lover's death.
Because these attributes are equally strong inside of the princess, as they are in her father, it is hard
to tell which door she chose.
Justice
"The Lady, or the Tiger?" depicts a unique form of "justice" which we do not often see represented
in contemporary society. What marks the form of justice in the king's arena is that it is completely
up to chance. No one decides the fate of the prisoner; it depends on nothing but his own luck. In
this way, it is also impartial: luck or chance does not care which door the prisoner chooses. In the
story, the narrator refers to this kind of justice as a "poetic justice" in which the fate of the prisoner
is decided by "an impartial and incorruptible chance" (45-6). That chance cannot be "corrupted"
means that those in power do not have a say over the outcome of the trial and every prisoner is
given an equal opportunity to save their own life—except, of course, when the princess gets
involved.
According to the narrator of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" this form of justice is perfectly fair: "Its
perfect fairness is obvious. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady:
he opened either he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was
to be devoured or married. On some occasions, the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of

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the other" (47). The prisoner's fate is also immediately decided and set in stone, and therefore
cannot be changed. He is married or murdered right there in front of the entire kingdom.

Thus, readers are left with an interesting question: is this form of justice truly "fair"? Is it fairer
than the justice that we see in the modern world, where the fate of an accused person is decided by
a judge or jury? In our current system of justice, there is the worry that the accused fate will be
hindered by the jury's biases. Though there are often procedures in place to check that bias (e.g.
screening a jury, choosing jury members that do not have personal stakes in the trial, etc), the court
can never be certain that these procedures are 100% effective. In the end, those with more power
are often given more of a say and different people receive different kinds of justice in the
courtroom.
Is a justice that is based on chance any better? Obviously, it is not—innocent prisoners might be
sent to their death simply because they had been accused of a crime. Similarly, guilty prisoners
might be rewarded simply because they happen to choose the door that is hiding the princess. The
only benefit to this kind of justice system seems to be the fact that it is "impartial" and
"incorruptible"—but is it, really? The princess, thanks to her power, is able to corrupt the justice
system and mold it to her own ends.
The princess's intrusion in the "perfect fairness" of this justice system also offers its own message.
Because she is so powerful, she is able to use her power to discover what is behind each door. No
one in the kingdom has ever done this before, not even her father. As a result, the fate of her lover
is not left up to chance but is instead completely in her hands. She has the power to save him or
send him to his death depending on her will. Perhaps the message of the princess's intrusion is that
justice can never really be impartial as long as it is being dealt out by humans. Humans have a
natural tendency to have biases, knowingly or unknowingly, and there will always be someone
with enough power to tip the scales of justice in their favor.
Power
Hand-in-hand with the theme of justice comes the theme of power. Because this story is about the
workings of a kingdom, we are given a setting in which a few characters (i.e. the king and the
princess) are given great power, and the rest of the characters (i.e. the subjects) have very little.
The king has so much power, in fact, that the quality of life of his subjects is entirely dependent
on his fancy. As the narrator tells us, the king is powerful enough that every single one of his
whims can be converted into fact: "He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority
so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-
communing; and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done" (45).
He has the power to decide whether or not his subjects will prosper or suffer. In fact, the kind of
justice that each subject receives is dependent upon whether the king is interested in their case:
"When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance to interest the king, public notice
was given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's
arena" (46). The king has the power to upend tradition as he pleases and make new traditions of

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his own. The narrator writes, the king "knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than
pleased his fancy" (46). Additionally, because the king takes so much pleasure in his justice
system, he does not allow anything to postpone the spectacle of the punishment or the reward: "It
mattered not that [the prisoner] might already possess a wife and family, or that his affections
might be engaged upon an object of his own selection; the king allowed no such subordinate
arrangements to interfere with his great scheme" (46). For anyone who might be stepping into the
king's arena, "there was no escape" (47).
There is only one character in the story whose power matches that of the king. That is his daughter,
the princess, who is able to completely subvert the king's system according to her own interests.
Because of her great power, she is able to figure out which door is hiding the princess and which
door is hiding the tiger: "Possessed of more power, influence, and force of character than any one
who had ever before been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done,—
she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors. . . [G]old, and the power of a woman's will,
had brought the secret to the princess" (48). Here, it is suggested that the princess's power is not
only in her status but also in her gender: it is thanks to her "woman's will" that she is able to
discover the secret.
The princess's discovery of the truth has given her a power that no one—not even the king—has
before possessed in the kingdom. She now has the power to determine whether her lover lives or
dies. Her lover goes confidently, without doubt, in the direction that the princess sends him:
"Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it" (50). In this way,
the princess's power is absolute. She holds an entire life in her hands. This power is what makes
the central question of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" so interesting. She has upended the "perfect
justice" of the king's arena and has turned it instead into a matter of her own will. Very few people
will ever hold that much power. It is hard to imagine what someone with that much power would
choose.
Human Nature
Another theme of "The Lady, or the Tiger" is human nature. In fact, the story's question depends
upon the reader's understanding of human nature more than anything else. The story does not give
us a definite answer to the question of the young man's fate at the end of the story: that question is
left for readers to interpret and judge for themselves. The reader's judgment about what happens
at the end of the story depends entirely on what they think the princess will do.
As the narrator tells us, "the more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer."
Deciding whether the princess chooses her lover's death or her lover's marriage to another
"involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of
which it is difficult to find our way" (50). In fact, as the narrator tells us, we cannot think about
this question in terms of what we would do ourselves; instead we must consider the character of
"that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of
despair and jealousy" (50). The princess, who is so powerful, nonetheless does not have the power
to decide who she can love. Here, her power has failed. As the text asks, "she had lost him, but
who should have him?" (50).

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The fact that the princess gestures towards the door on the right without hesitation does not mean
that she had not spent countless days thinking about the question of which door to choose. In fact,
"she had known she would be asked" and prepared her decision accordingly (50). In order to
answer this question, the reader must know the princess intimately—something that is impossible
to do. The narrator himself does not know the answer. He writes, "[t]he question of her decision is
not one to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person
able to answer it" (50). As a result, he leaves the question with us readers. We each will have our
own interpretations of the princess's decision, depending upon how we have read her character.
The Lady or the Tiger? Symbols, Allegory and Motifs
Love (Motif)
Love is a major motif throughout "The Lady, or the Tiger?" Every prisoner that enters the king's
arena has a 50% chance of opening a door that holds a lady whom he will immediately marry.
However, this union is not based on love. In fact, as the narrator points out, it does not matter if
the prisoner is in a relationship with another woman: "It mattered not that he might already possess
a wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection: the
king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution
and reward. The exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, and in the arena" (46).
In other words, those who are subject to the king's power are not given true freedom to love fully.
The starkest example of this is the princess, who, even though she is the king's favorite person,
cannot choose her own lover. The princess falls in love of her own accord: "Among [the king's]
courtiers was a young man of that fineness of blood and lowness of station common to the
conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. This royal maiden was well satisfied
with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to a degree unsurpassed in all this kingdom" (47).
The princess loves the courtier passionately: "she loved him with an ardor that had enough of
barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong" (47). Despite this, however, when the
king finds out about the affair, he puts her lover in jail and subjects him to the trial of the arena. It
is thus in the princess's hands to decide whether her lover lives and marries another, or dies.
Is love truly possible within a system such as this one? Anyone but the king who falls in love must
live with the knowledge that their love is vulnerable to destruction at any moment. Should
something go wrong and one of the lovers be sent to trial, the relationship will be automatically
destroyed. Either the lover will be killed, or he will be forced to marry another.
The King's Arena (Symbol)
The king's arena is a symbol of absolute power and of the passions of the soul. The king builds
this arena for the purpose of carrying out his unique system of justice that is entirely based on
chance. However, the princess corrupts the impartiality of this system when she takes it upon
herself to discover what each door is hiding. Thus, it is suggested that impartial justice can never
exist and that power corrupts justice in the end.
The king's arena also symbolizes something else: the human soul. The description of the
architecture of the arena is similar to that of the princess's psyche. The narrator describes the king's

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arena: it is a "vast amphitheater, with its encircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen
passages" (45). Later, he extends his description: "[t]through these thick doors, heavily curtained
with skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within
to the person who should approach to raise the latch of one of them" (48).

Later in the story, the narrator describes human nature using similar terms: "The more we reflect
upon the question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which leads us
through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way" (50). Note that both
the arena and the princess's character are described as labyrinths in which one can easily get lost.
This suggests that the king's arena is a tool through which we learn about—and question—human
nature, which is ultimately unknowable. "The Lady, or the Tiger?" has no concrete conclusion
because we do not know the princess's soul—not even the narrator has that power—and thus, like
a prisoner who is wandering the hallways of the amphitheater, we are in the dark about what the
truth might be.
The Doors (Symbol)
There are two doors in the king's arena. One door hides a tiger that will eat whoever opens it. The
other hides a lady who will immediately be married to whoever opens it. These doors function as
symbols within the world of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" On the first level, they symbolize life and
death. Because humans do not know the future, we can never truly be sure whether the decisions
that we make will lead to our salvation or our destruction.
In this way, the doors also are symbolic representations of free will. The prisoner is given the
choice as to which door he will choose. He does not know the outcome of his choice until there is
no escape from it. This is very similar to how we live our lives. We always have the power to
choose how our life turns out, but we will not know the outcome of that choice until it is happening
to us in real time. The exercise of free will always be a gamble between a likely outcome based on
reasoning and the absolute unknown.
The Lady or the Tiger? Irony
The king's behavior (Verbal Irony)
"When every member of his domestic and political systems moved smoothly in its appointed
course, his nature was bland and genial; but whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his orbs
got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, for nothing pleased him so much as to
make the crooked straight, and crush down uneven places" (45).
The line above constitutes verbal irony because it subverts the reader's expectations for how the
sentence should end to comic effect. The coordinating conjunction "but" suggests to the reader that
the king's behavior will change from "bland and genial" to something less agreeable when things
are not going his way. Instead, the narrator informs us that the king becomes even more bland and
genial when things veer off course, since he finds great pleasure in making things right. This gives

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us a funny view of the king and inserts a humorous tone early in the story that ironizes the king
and underlines the fact that he does not generally act in an expected manner.
The olden-times vs the present (Situational Irony)
“Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of
the king. In after years such things became commonplace enough, but then they were in no slight
degree novel and startling” (47).
This passage is a moment of situational irony that gives us a bit of the voice of the narrator. In the
first line of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" the narrator situates us in "the very olden time" (45). The
reader expects for the story to be entirely situated in this "olden time" as they are given elements
that are commonly associated with fairy tales, such as a princess, her handsome lover, and a
terrifying beast. Despite this, the narration brings us to the present with the passage above to comic
effect. In the same breath, the narrator asserts the uniqueness of the situation in the story and then
subverts that very uniqueness by saying that readers today will find it "commonplace enough."
The result is a humorous moment that distances the narrator from the events of the story and
introduces a contemporary or modern point of view.
"Perfect fairness" (Verbal Irony)
"This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice. Its perfect fairness is obvious"
(47).
Depending on the reader, the use of "perfect fairness" in the passage above could constitute verbal
irony. The system of justice as the king designs it leaves the fate of prisoners up to chance.
However, as the story shows us, this system is not perfectly fair. In fact, it can be corrupted by
those who have enough power to do so, such as the princess. Additionally, contemporary readers—
including readers from Stockton's time—might raise their eyebrows at the idea that a system of
justice that is based on chance and deals out punishments or rewards arbitrarily is "perfectly fair."
What about prisoners who are falsely accused of crimes? Also, what about prisoners who are
obviously guilty but nevertheless chose the door with the reward?
The Lady or the Tiger? Imagery
The king's arena
Stockton uses imagery to describe the king's arena early in the story. The narrator notes that the
arena is a "vast amphitheater, with...encircling galleries...mysterious vaults, and...unseen
passages" (45). This imagery underlines the purpose of the arena, which is meant to leave justice
up to chance. In order for that to happen, no one must have knowledge of what each door hides.
The four adjectives in the passage above emphasize humans' relationship with this arena: their
power is subverted in the face of its "vast," "encircling," "mysterious," and "unseen" structure.
Additionally, these adjectives emphasize the lack of knowledge that this system of justice
conditions.
Weddings in the arena

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Stockton uses a lot of imagery when describing the typical wedding ceremony in the arena. When
the prisoner chooses the door that hides the lady, the celebrations immediately begin: "a priest,
followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns and
treading an epithalamic measure, advanced to where the pair stood, side by side, and the wedding
was promptly and cheerily solemnized" (46). In the passage above, we are given visual and
auditory descriptions of what a wedding ceremony in the arena entails. Additionally, the image of
the man and wife standing "side by side" symbolizes their union at this juncture in their lives. We
are also given the multitude's response to this celebration: "the people shouted glad hurrahs, and
the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his path, led his bride to his home"
(47). The imagery in these passages gives us a clear grasp of what these celebrations were like,
painting a vibrant and multi-textured image of the ceremony in our minds as we read.
The princess’s fears
"Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi
barbaric futurity?

And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood" (50).
In the passage above, the princess is debating with herself as to whether she should save her lover
or let him be devoured by the tiger. The second line contains important imagery: "those shrieks,
that blood." This short line gives us what the lover being mauled by a tiger would sound and look
like, which brings us to that moment. It also tells us what will affect the princess most should this
violence occur. The succinctness of the line emphasizes the dramatic effect of what it contains—
it is a gruesome scene that would surely be horrifying to watch, especially if it is your lover who
is being mauled to death by a tiger.
The Lady or the Tiger? Literary Elements
Genre
Short Fiction
Setting and Context
The story is set in "the very olden time" in a kingdom which is ruled by a "semi-barbaric" king
and which has "Latin neighbors" (45).
Narrator and Point of View
The story is told by a third-person omniscient narrator.
Tone and Mood
The tone of the story is humorous. The mood of the story is suspenseful, as it is uncertain whether
the princess will choose for her lover to die or to marry another.
Protagonist and Antagonist

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The protagonist of the story is the princess, though she is a complex character with both positive
and negative attributes. The antagonist of the story might be the king, even though he loves the
princess. This is because he does not allow his daughter and the courtier to stay together because
he is much below her in status.
Major Conflict
The main conflict in the story is the princess's decision as to whether she will allow her lover to
marry another or if she will condemn him to death.
Climax
The story has an open ending, and it never comes to the climax as the reader does not find which
door the man has opened, and who stood behind the door.
Foreshadowing
Early in the story, the king is described as “a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority
so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts" (45). This description
foreshadows the fact that the king will turn his cruel fantasy of a public arena into reality.
Structure
◆ The story is divided in three parts.
The first part discusses the king’s nature and his justice system.
The second part narrates the affair of the princess and the commoner, the king’s discovery, and the
lover’s trial in the arena.
The third part throws the light on the princess’s decision. The story ends with the narrator
challenging the readers to finish the story.
Conflicts
◆ The entire story is based on conflicts―the conflicting nature in the king, the conflict of emotions
in the princess who has to take a decision, and the doors depicting conflicts of life and death.
Irony
◆ Irony is present throughout the story. For example: the lover’s complete trust in the princess to
show him the correct door. The trial day unfolds the truth of the princess’s revelation on which of
the doors would either set her lover free or kill him. Worst still, is her decision to let him marry
the maiden and not let the tiger tear him to pieces.
Lesson
◆ Most stories depict the characters being influenced by outer forces, uncontrollable situation or
destiny. However, this story focuses on the power of choice. The king allows the accused to choose
his verdict (in a way). The entire story is based on choices, not knowing which side the scales will

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tilt. The narrator ends the story in suspense, letting the readers decide the outcome. The message
is clear that life is based on the choices we make.
Stockton said: “If you decide which it was―the lady or the tiger―you find out what kind of person
you are yourself.” Well, he definitely did not have an answer. Though, he had planned an
appropriate ending to the story, he could not write one, as he states further “for I had not the
advantage of being either semi-barbaric or a woman.” meaning he left the choice to the reader to
let the shrewd, wicked side of one take precedence over the harmless dove-like side or vice-versa.

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