5. The King
*The king is a "semi-barbaric" man with an
implacable will. He has a strange system of
punishment for criminals.
*He has established the public arena in which the
accused are forced to choose between one door, one
of which hides a beautiful lady to whom the accused
will be married (whether he likes it or not)
if he opens her door, and the other a hungry tiger
that will kill him should he open its door.
6. The Princess
*The king has a beautiful daughter.
*She secretly loves a young man who is a commoner.
*When her lover, the young man, is condemned to trial by public
arena,
the princess uses gold and willpower to discover which door in
the arena holds which fate for him
7. The Audience
*The people of the kingdom who gather at the public arena to
be entertained and pleased by the trials held there.
*The king’s system of justice is popular with audience members
because they are excitedly uncertain as to whether they will
witness a death or a joyous (or hilarious) wedding.
*When someone dies in the arena, the audience mourns with
downcast hearts; when someone is married in the arena, they
celebrate spectacularly.
The audience is more interested in entertainment than in
justice.
9. The short story takes place in a land ruled by a semi-
barbaric king.
Some of the king's ideas are progressive, but others
cause people to suffer.
One of the king's innovations is the use of a public trial
by ordeal as an agent of poetic justice,
with guilt or innocence decided by the result of
chance (luck)
10. The accused of a crime is brought into a public arena and
must choose one of two doors.
Behind one door is a lady for marriage with the accused
(criminal);
behind the other is a fierce, hungry tiger.
Both doors are heavily soundproofed to prevent the accused
from hearing what is behind each one.
If the criminal chooses the door with the lady behind it, he is
declared innocent and must immediately marry her, but if
he chooses the door with the tiger behind it, he is
announced guilty and is immediately killed by the tiger.
11. The king learns that his daughter,
the Princess has a lover, a handsome and
brave youth who is of
lower status than the princess,
and has him imprisoned to await for public
trial……
12. By the time of trial,
the princess has used her influence to learn the
positions of the lady and the tiger behind the two
doors.
She has also discovered that the lady is someone
whom she hates, thinking her to be a rival for the
affections of the accused.
13. During the trial, the lover looks at
the Princess for help,
she indirectly indicates the door
on his right,
which he opens.
14. The Suspense…
The result of this choice is not opened.
Instead, the narrator departs from the story
to describes the princess's state of mind and
her thoughts about directing the accused to
one fate or the other, as she will lose him to
either death or marriage.
15. Stockton puts the princess at the center of a
terrible conflict:
whether she will send her lover to his death or
allow him live and marry another woman
16. Her decision is left unresolved at the
story's conclusion.
The story's power and popularity was
gained by its abrupt ending, which
leaves the reader to guess the
princess's decision, and her lover's
fate.
