The Lady Or Tiger Summary

Short story by Frank Stockton

"The Lady, or the Tiger?" was the championship story in an 1884 drove of twelve stories by Frank R. Stockton published by Scribner

"The Lady, or the Tiger?" is a much-anthologized short story written by Frank R. Stockton for publication in the mag The Century in 1882. "The Lady, or the Tiger?" has entered the English language as an allegorical expression, a shorthand indication or signifier, for a problem that is unsolvable.

Plot summary [edit]

A "semi-barbaric" king rules a state sometime in the by. Some of the male monarch'due south ideas are progressive, merely others cause people to suffer. One of the rex'due south innovations is the use of a public trial by ordeal as "an amanuensis of poetic justice", with guilt or innocence decided by the issue of chance. A person accused of a crime is brought into a public arena and must choose one of ii doors.^[1] Behind i door is a lady whom the king has deemed an appropriate friction match for the accused; backside the other is a fierce, hungry tiger. Both doors are heavily soundproofed to foreclose the defendant from hearing what is backside each i. If he chooses the door with the lady behind it, he is innocent and must immediately marry her, simply if he chooses the door with the tiger behind it, he is accounted guilty and is immediately devoured by the animal.

The king learns that his daughter has a lover, a handsome and brave youth who is of lower status than the princess, and has him imprisoned to await trial. By the time that day comes, the princess has used her influence to acquire 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 angel of the defendant. When he looks to the princess for help, she discreetly indicates the door on his right, which he opens.

The issue of this selection is non revealed. Instead, the narrator departs from the story to summarize the princess's state of mind and her thoughts nearly directing the accused to one fate or the other, as she volition lose him to either decease or marriage. She contemplates the pros and cons of each choice, though notably considering the lady more than. "And and so I leave it with all of you lot: Which came out of the opened door – the lady, or the tiger?"

Other works [edit]

By Stockton [edit]

Stockton later wrote "The Discourager of Hesitancy,"^[two] a follow-upwardly to "The Lady, or the Tiger?" that begins with 5 travelers visiting the kingdom to find what the accused man in that story found behind the door he chose. An official tells them a second story, of a prince who had come to the kingdom to discover a wife. Instead of assuasive him to encounter any bachelor ladies, the male monarch had him immediately taken to invitee quarters and summoned attendants to gear up him for a nuptials to be held the next twenty-four hours. One attendant introduced himself equally the Discourager of Hesitancy and explained that his job was to ensure compliance with the king's will, through the subtle threat of the large "cimeter" (scimitar) he carried.

At apex on the post-obit 24-hour interval, the prince was blindfolded and brought before a priest, where a marriage anniversary was performed and he could feel and hear a lady continuing next to him. One time the ceremony was complete, the blindfold was removed and he turned to find 40 ladies standing before him, one of whom was his new bride. If he did not correctly identify her, the Discourager would execute him on the spot. The prince narrowed the possibilities down to two, one lady smiling and one frowning, and made the correct selection.

The kingdom official tells the five travelers that once they figure out which lady the prince had married, he will tell them the outcome of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" The story ends with a annotate that they withal have non come to a conclusion.

By other artists [edit]

A play adaptation by Sydney Rosenfeld debuted at Wallack'south Theatre in 1888 and ran for seven weeks. In addition to stretching out the story as long as possible to brand it a play, at the finish the pick was revealed to the audience: neither a lady nor a tiger, but an old hag.^[3]

A radio dramatization of "The Lady, or the Tiger" by Elliott and Cathy Lewis aired on the show On Stage in 1953.^[4]

Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp released a recording of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" and "The Discourager of Hesitancy" with Willcox reading the stories to electric guitar accessory past Fripp.

"The Lady, or the Tiger?" is one of three brusque stories that were adjusted into the 1966 musical comedy The Apple tree Tree.^[five]

The story served every bit inspiration for Raymond Smullyan's puzzle book by the same title, The Lady, or the Tiger?.^[6] The first fix of logic puzzles in the book had a similar scenario to the short story in which a king gives each prisoner a choice between a number of doors; behind each ane was either a lady or a tiger. Even so, the king bases the prisoner's fate on intelligence and not luck by posting a statement on each door that can be truthful or faux.

The Lady, or the Tiger? was adapted into a curt pic by Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation in 1970.^[seven] ^[8]

The Lady or the Tiger is a one-deed play adapted from Stockton's short story and published past Lazy Bee Scripts in 2010.^[ix]

"The Purr-fect Crime", Flavour 1, Episode 19 of the U.South. television series Batman ends with a cliffhanger in which Catwoman has Batman locked in a room with 2 doors; ane of which opens to her, and the other opens to a tiger. Over an intercom she taunts him with "Which will it exist, Batman? The lady or the tiger?" Batman has no hint and chooses the door that has the tiger.^[10]

The 2011 They Might Be Giants album Bring together U.s. includes a song titled "The Lady and the Tiger," which retells Stockton's story through lyrics such every bit "behind one door, a muffled roar. Behind the other, a voice."

References [edit]

^ VOA Learning English language video
^ "The Discourager of Hesitancy" in the Century Magazine Archive
^ Smith, Cecil & Glenn Litton. Musical Comedy in America, p. 44 (1991 ed.)
^ Grams, Martin (2008-02-27). Radio drama : a comprehensive chronicle of American network programs, 1932-1962. Jefferson, Northward.C.: McFarland. ISBN9780786438716. OCLC 188535974.
^ "The Apple tree Tree". Music Theatre International.
^ Smullyan, Raymond G. (1992). The Lady or the Tiger? And Other Logic Puzzles: Including a Mathematical Novel that Features Gödel's Great Discovery. ISBN0812921178.
^ The lady or the tiger?; and, A Discussion of Frank Stockton's The Lady, or the tiger?. OCLC 422754519.
^ "Frank Stockton's story". Britannica Kids . Retrieved 2018-05-23 .
^ "The Lady or the Tiger by Gerald P. White potato". Lazy Bee Scripts.
^ "Batman (Television Serial): The Purr-fect Crime (1966): Plot Summary". IMDb. Retrieved 2016-08-08 .

External links [edit]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Women or Tiger?—7 logical challenges and solutions based on the volume
The Lady, or the Tiger? championship list at the Net Speculative Fiction Database
The Lady or the Tiger public domain audiobook at LibriVox