Lady Or Tiger

Who would you choose, The Lady or the Tiger? In Frank Stockton’s short story, The Lady or the Tiger, the author leaves the ending in a very precarious way. The author, Frank, leaves the story ending up to the reader. The princess should have the most sympathy in this short story. She is the daughter of a barbaric king who has made his own justice system that he feels is fair. The king puts the accused into an arena where they decide their fate. The princess has to make a brutal decision of seeing the man she loves being eaten by a tiger or being with another woman for the rest of their nature lives.
However, the princess was only semi-barbaric—this means that half of her was reasonable and able to resist barbaric and emotional reactions. If she had to make her decision instantly, then, her barbaric blood would probably have won out, but the author mentions twice, that she worried over this decision for days and nights. With so much emphasis, it is clear that the author intended to have the princess’s reasonable side shine through, thus saving her lover by sending him into her enemy’s arms.
Although there is plenty of evidence that shows how much the princess was jealous of the lady and hated the lady behind the door, the attention the author brings to the princess’s internal conflict helps to show that she finally chose to save him. “Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished deliberation. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and, without the slightest hesitation she moved her hand to the right”. (25) The princess had to make one of the hardest decisions in her life, to betray her lover or her father.
Throughout the short story the people in the village had come to the arena to see if a person was guilty or innocent. “ When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king, surrounded by his court, sat high up on his throne of royal state on one side of the