Choices in The Lady Or The Tiger Essay

Emotion Within You

Which door did the princess choose? The Lady or the Tiger?

Inside of all of us, there is an analogy between love and hate. What is the stronger emotion, love or hate? That questions answer could lead to which door, that of the Lady or the Tiger? The Lady or the Tiger causes humans to think deeply and decipher between two choices in a heart-wrenching dilemma. The princesss decision lies within her emotions; is she a lover, or hater and what will be the mans fate, and who really decides the fate of her lover?

The love affair moved on happily for months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence (Stockton 34). In the kings eyes a peasant is not good enough for his daughter. He will find a way to destroy their relationship. The princess has a strong love for the man who must play the Kings barbaric game of love or death (Stockton 35). This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to a degree unsurpassed in this kingdom; and she loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong (Stockton 34). Since the princess has such an absolute love for this man, her decision will be easy.(Complex Sentence She could let him marry the maiden, so then she could meet up with him again.(Compound Sentence The princess could not watch the man that she loves become a tigers dinner. Since the man believed this, he laid his life in the princesss arms, knowing she would direct him to the door that would lead him to a long and happy life (Stockton 36).

Is the love stronger than her hate for the maiden he would marry, seeing him live a life with another women? The princess did not like the maiden who her lover would be married to (Stockton 35). The princess almost had a jealousy of this woman, specifically when she would throw glances at her lover and those glances were sometimes returned (Stockton 35). The princess would have a problem seeing her lover torn and killed but she could stand the sight. This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and imperious as his own (Stockton 34). Since the princess is as barbaric as her father and did not quiver at the killing of a man, this could make her decision that much easier in choosing the death of her love.(Complex Sentence The man could not imagine that these thoughts could even pass through the princesss mind and he has no idea of the hatred the princess has for this other women.( Compound Sentence How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that women, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife between her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitude, in which her own despairing shriek was lost and drowned (Stockton 36). Blinded by the love between them he will follow the princesss choice of door under any circumstance.(Simple Sentence The princesss decision is so simple, how could she ever think of letting that maiden have her lover.

These mixed emotions that she feels; one has to be stronger than the other. She must choose between the Tiger or the Lady, so which one is it? Most simply answered inside her, which of her emotions seems stronger, the love or the hate? Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished deliberation (Stockton 36). Obviously this tough decision has the princess stuck between her love and hate. She yearns for this man so much that it almost seems like desperation to have him.(Simple Sentence She yearns for him almost to the point of desperation, where if she cant have him no one can. If she lets him go with this woman, he could possibly forget about the love they once had and fall to the maiden the princess despises. Said many times through out the story, that would be worse then letting him die (Stockton 35-36). Mark Twain, known for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, once said, love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. This quotation shows that, if someone loves somebody else they expect to be loved the same. The princess wants to be loved completely by the man, that which he does not even desire anyone else.(Complex Sentence If he was married to a beautiful woman, how could he accomplish only thinking about the princess? She knows that this is true but still has hope that he will not forget her and will love her anyway. She hopes that one day they could meet up again. Yet she also knows that the chance that he will not remember her would be great and she could not live with the pain of knowing that.(Compound Sentence Her decision is a heart breaking tragedy.

She had done what no other person had done, she had possessed herself of the secret of the two doors. She knew in which of the two rooms that lay behind those doors stood the cage of the tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady (Stockton 36) The princess knows which door but the author never reveals to the reader which door she chooses.(Compound Sentence The Lady or The Tiger leaves the reader with a cliffhanger, so the reader must decide.(Simple Sentence At the end of the story, Frank R Stockton asks a question, The question of her decision is not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door the Lady, or the Tiger? (Stockton 36). This makes the ending come from the readers imagination, what did he or she feel was stronger or the right choice? Would the reader let him die because living with out him was too hard of a choice or keep him alive because her love outweighed the hate and it is not humane to let him die? It may be possible to say that this story pulls at the readers heart because the story looks within them to find the answer. (Complex Sentence

There are many questions and thoughts throughout that this story as it was told.(Simple Sentence Some showing that she loves, like when the princess thinks And yet that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood! (36). She did not want him to die because she loved him so much.(Complex Sentence She also couldnt watch him die in such a terrible way. Yet she also says, would it not be better for him to die at once, and go wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity? (36). The princess says she loves the man to a never-ending extent and she also says that she hates the maiden to a never-ending extent.(Compound Sentence By never ending the story, the author forced the readers to look inside of themselves. At those last few sentences, what was the reader deciding, did he live or did he die? If it came into the mind of the reader that he had been given the door to his death, is the reader a hateful person? The theme of this story reveals who the reader is, a lover or hater.