The Strength Of Love In 'The Lady Or The Tiger'

While many people consider love to be the most powerful motivation of all, the condition of the heart is what determines the strength of love. In Stockton’s “The Lady or the Tiger,” a beautiful princess’s love for another is overtaken by her selfish heart. The king discovers the forbidden love affair between his daughter and a courtier, and sentences the young man to choose his own fate. The Accused must decide between two doors, one with a lady whom he will marry. Behind the other door awaits a hungry tiger to execute a gruesome death. However, the princess struggles between which door she should send her lover to open. Alternatively, Stockton describes the princess to be as barbaric and imperious as her father. Her insanely jealous heart cannot tolerate even imagining her lover marrying the other woman. Even though the princess professes to love the accused, her self-centered mentality unable her to consider anyone but herself when making a decision. As a result, the evidence causes the reader

The princess only think about her own pain upon seeing her lover marrying another woman, and seems to prefer to watch his death. “How her soul had burned in agony when she seen him rush to meet that woman…” (6). If she truly loved the young man, she would not agonize over her decision to save him. The princess’s inability to think of anyone but herself blinds her to the pain she places on another. “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?” (6). With no regard to the man’s possible desires, she feels better for him to die than let him marry other woman. The self-centered princess focus on her not only prevents any possibility of true love, and it will cause her to demonstrate the opposite by sending her lover to his death. The princess’s selfishness causes her to decide to send her lover to the