So… Was It The Lady Or The Tiger?

“It is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer this question.” So The Search’s editors, Rachel Maria and Morgan Elizabeth, are going at loggerheads, arguing their opinions. Read on, fair reader, and give us your opinions as well!

The Lady

Rachel Maria

It goes without saying that true love would wish to save the life of the beloved. It also goes without saying that true love would sacrifice itself for the good of the beloved. Taken together, this means that, if the hot-blooded semi-barbaric princess truly loved the young man, she would sacrifice her pride and save her lover’s life: she would signal to him to open the door and marry the lady.

The question is, was it true love?

Yes! The princess had an “intense and fervid soul,” and it would not allow her to love by halves. She could not be dominated by jealousy, because jealousy is not intense or fervid. Jealousy is weak, and the jealous are weak and withered. The princess has strength of character and of will – obviously – and could not possibly give in to such a pitiful temptation as jealousy without losing that strength. But she has not not lost it by the end (she gestures to the right without any hesitation), so she must not have given in to jealousy.

Sometimes, it is true, jealousy appears intense, but this cannot be the case for the princess. She is semi-barbaric, and has the semi-barbaric virtue of guilelessness. Deceitfulness is a trait of sleek, civilized people, not of hot-blooded semi-barbarians! The princess doesn’t have the dishonest cunning necessary to be jealous and look noble. If she were overcome by jealousy and truly desired to kill her lover, she would not still pretend to love him: she would show her hate (for intense and fervid semi-barbaric love would not easily fade into indifference; first it would have to become hate).

If the princess seems to be in love, she is. And if she is in love, there is no doubt that she would fling her semi-barbaric white-hot-souled self into her love, and sacrifice herself for her beloved.

So, which came out the opened door? ‘Twas the lady, of course!!

The Tiger

Morgan Elizabeth

In his controversial conundrum, The Lady and the Tiger, Frank Stockton presents us with problem that can be looked at multiple ways. But he warns us, “Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended on yourself, but on that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy.”

I, one of many fair readers, have thought of it and determined that the fate she chose for her lover was the tiger.

The princess had “a soul as fervent and imperious” as her father, the tyrannical, whimsical, obsessive, semi-barbaric king. She was a passionate, “imperious” princess, who “possessed great power, influence, and force of character.” She was used to having her will, especially as she was “daddy’s girl.” Possibly, the king had never denied her wishes until the day he discovered the love affair. (Killing off lovers is one thing that devoted, protective, jealous daddies do best.)

In accordance with her character, the princess “loved [her young man] with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong.” When he was brought to the arena, “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 on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested.”

The princess’s and the lover’s “souls were one… He understood her nature.” He trusted her so much, he knew her so well that when she moved her hand ever so slightly to the right, he did not hesitate to throw his fate in that direction.

On one hand, there was an excruciating death by “the cruel fangs of the tiger.” On the other, the marriage to the fairest damsel, which offered some form of possibility, restarting life and finding another love. She “was the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the court… and the princess hated her with all the intensity of savage blood.” The youth knew the princess’s soul very intimately, as a staunch lover would; but the princess had seen her lover and her enemy talking together, perhaps exchanging glances of affection.

The reader can’t determine which fate the youth would have preferred, due to steadfast love, despair, fear of death, desire to restart life again, or the hope of finding new love. And however well the youth knew the princess’s soul, Stockton says nothing as to how well she knew his. Had she known him as well as he knew her, her own desire might have been less vacillating.

Some proponents of the latter fate will argue that the princess was a loving woman. Women—emotional wrecks that we are!—would surely never chose death for their lovers. But our princess wasn’t just any woman—note how often Stockton stresses on her barbarity and her passion. He provides so much evidence for her jealousy which would provoke her to chose the tiger, and so little evidence for her desperate love which would cause her to choose the lady instead. Stockton might be leading us on a red herring… but he’s not in a position to tell us if that’s the case, and regardless—little could be more disappointing than finding that the answer was based on non-existent evidence.

One rather callous supposition is that the princess chose the lady so that her lover would live, and later killed off the fair damsel so she would be out of the way. This does harmonize with the princess’s barbaric, relentless nature. Nevertheless, even were the young man alive and free, she could never have him. The laws of the king and the kingdom stood between the lovers.

And as the princess was not sure where her lover’s heart lies, she could not make a decision based on his desire. She might have chosen the lady, had he loved life regardless of the woman he lived it with. In time, he may have grown to love his new wife. She might have showed him to the tiger’s door if his love was just as passionate as her own—he would not wish to live without her.

But again evidence points against her complying with his desire, even had she known it. Their love—though passionate—cannot be called “true love.” True love is free from selfishness, suspicion, and jealousy. The princess suspected her lover of infidelity, even though he and the damsel had only talked for “a moment or two.” She was jealous—“her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph.” And what statement could more attest to her selfishness than, “She had lost him, so who would have him?” Or her anguish when she saw “his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life”?

That she should rather have him die than live—it is shocking, but not impossible. “The devious mazes of passion” often lead us to strange places. Did the princess succumb to her passions—either believing in his undying love or denying him the chance to live again? Or was she overcome by the gory death, or did she overcome her own obsession, and choose her enemy to be her lover’s wife?

“The question of her decision is not one to be lightly considered.” I have not lightly considered it, and seeing the words which support both possibilities, I’ve concluded that the tiger was behind the right door. The question is, now, was it the right decision?

So, fair readers, which was it? The lady or the tiger? Give us your opinions in the comments’ section below! 😀