I guess I’d need more information than “semi-barbaric.” Is she leaning towards barbarism, or civilization? That’s probably why the author went with that word.
Wasn’t part of the problem of picking the lady is that the princess knew that was her lover’s ex, and that she’d seen them “looking” at each other? She knew if things didn’t work out, her lover would hook up with his ex? In the story I read, it was the princess hinting which door to pick, not the king.
I remember reading somewhere that there was a sequel to this story somewhere, where he picked the lady, and then there was another choice later, but I can’t remember much more than that.
Like Baker ,I had this in high school. My solution: She indicated the door with the lady,he opens it,leads her out and as they’re passing the other door,he opens it and shoves her in,leaving him free for the princess.
I think the princess would choose the lady. Assuming the princess leads a sheltered life of privilege, she probably considers herself a decent and righteous person and seeing as they are not married yet, her naive and idealistic notion of love has not yet been shattered by reality. Being privileged allows her the luxury of honor, so she chooses the lady in order to preserve her self image of honor. After all, princesses are fed a daily diet of their own importance, shoveled by the cartload by the royal court.
If the guy gets a happy ending, the princess could even go on to shag the next hot guy who comes along, with a clean conscience. She could repeat this pattern on a whim, since there’s never any lasting bad consequences to the princess’ decision.
If they actually lived together a little while, the princess would arrange to have the guy fed to a tiger, for nothing the poor guy tries could ever satisfy the princess, after her previous life of pampering. The princess would want to escape the reality of commoners and return to the illusion of the privileged.
Short version (YMMV)
It’s a story. Man falls in love with Princess. Man is a commoner, so for his crime of loving a royal, the king forces him to choose one of two doors to open. Behind one is a beautiful woman, who will become the man’s bride, and the other is a tiger who hasn’t been fed in a week.
Now, Princess knows what’s behind each door. Does she direct her lover to pick the door with the beautiful woman (who’s also caught her lover’s eye at one time or another) or the door with the hungry tiger, ensuring him a horrible death?
Man looks at Princess. Princess makes her decision and indicates what door to open. He opens door.
The End. We don’t know what’s behind the door.
Not an ex. Just someone who she’d seen “throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were perceived, and even returned.”
*I * think she picked the tiger…I would pick the lady. There’s other fish in the sea.
No offense, ivylass – you aren’t the only person to post something like this – but there is only one story. It was written by Frank Stockton in 1882 and was published in a magazine called Century. Apparently, it caused quite a stir at the time, this being before Ben Affleck.
Other may have seen some kind of filmed version (The Twilight Zone, perhaps?) or read a kids’ version for school, or remember it differently, but the story is at the link I posted. Frank Stockton, as far as we can tell, made it up. There is no other “official” version.
It is the princess who hints. The King is the one who makes the actual setup and decides the two potential fates.
no offense, JasonG, but there IS a follow-up to the story, of sorts…
the story, which unfortunately i don’t remember the name or author at this late date (but i’m pretty sure it’s a totally different author), directly mentions “The Lady and the Tiger”. the whole hook is that some scholarly schlub goes to learn the actual ending to the story from someone who apparently knows it (maybe the original fictitious king). when he makes his request, he is seized, blindfolded, and forced to participate in a marriage ceremony with an unknown woman. the blindfold is then removed and he is presented with a lineup of a dozen women. he is told that if he can pick out his new bride, he will learn the story’s ending; but if he picks the WRONG woman, he will die. he walks down the lineup, hoping for some sort of clue – perfume, clothing rustle, anything. he walks down the line a second time and notices that one woman smiles ever-so-slightly, while another woman frowns ever-so-slightly. the guy in charge calls “time”, and the man walks up to the women and chooses…
and you guessed it. we’re right back where we started from.
i really got P.O.d about that story.
That fits my memory as well.
Let’s face it, if it’s the King who is deciding (whether the guy was messing with his daughter or his wife) it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen to the guy.
-Joe, loved Monty Haul
Now there’s a copout 
This is the old paradox of the irresistible force and the immoveable object. If you could move on thinking there would be someone else down the road, then it isn’t True Love.
The suitor should choose the opposite of the door that she indicated (and I know that that wasn’t the story).
If she chose the tiger, then he would live (somewhat happily, one would hope), secure in the knowledge that he had dodged a life of fierce jealousy.
If she chose the lady, then it was True Love, and his continued life with another would only cause pain to both of them.
Easy for me to say…
Of course, if she knew him well enough, she might have anticipated this strategm. Who knows where that reasoning would end, but you may be sure that Iocaine powder is involved somewhere…
Plynck I have to say I like your idea of his choosing the other door. Nice logic involved.
But you’ve given everything away and there was no Iocaine power involved, because clearly the princess used her identical look-alike handmaiden as a decoy at the last moment and when he opened the door it was the princess herself who came walking through the door to marry him.
The story is, of course, a barometer of the soul. In reading the story and judging for oneself whether the young man was greeted by a shrieking female or a shrieking feline, one may theoretically learn much about oneself. It’s along the lines of the half-full-versus-half-empty query.
That being said, I think he got the tiger.
I always assumed the princess would have pointed him to the tiger. Never thought it any other way. Too many times of referring to them as a barbaric nation.
Well, I think that he read the signs over the doors and figured things out with complete logical aplomb.
(Yes, I know the real story; this is a cultural reference that many of you might not get. Deal. :))
No.
er… Yes.
If you put the lady and the tiger together and supercool them, do you get a Bose-Einstein condensate?
My theory is that the king secretly hired a ninja to play the lady, so that the peasant either gets mauled and eaten publicly, or has his throat slit on his way to freedom and gets silently dumped in the river.
JasonG, your link does indeed go to the original version. (I used to teach high school English and loved sharing this with my students.) If you reread your link you will notice that the princess was able to discover the secret of the doors and her lover knew that she would. He seemed to have more faith in the gesture that she made with her hand than some of us!
I always had my students vote on which came out and it was almost always a split decision. I see it as a vote for the power or love versus hatred.
Since I was a child and first read this story, I’ve never doubted that the lady came out. I guess I have no imagination.
The tiger. Right before it lunges, though, he picks up a bone with a sharp spiral fracture, and as it leaps it impales itself in the throat. Then he opens the door to the lady.