Barbarism vs Civilization
The question of barbarism vs civilization is a major theme in "The Lady, or the Tiger?" Throughout the story, characters are described as "barbaric" to the extent that they are not easily controlled and are given to extreme emotional passion. In contrast, they are described as "civilized" insofar as their behavior is seen as educated and refined.
The king is equal parts barbaric and civilized. Thus, he is "semi-barbaric." In other words, neither force gains the power to determine his character completely. The civilized half of his character has been influenced by "distant Latin neighbors" who have helped to polish and sharpen his ideas (45). Additionally, he has adopted the idea of the public arena from his Latin neighbors. This method of judgment also reduces his barbarism. Despite this, the barbaric half of the king's character is obvious. His ideas are "large, florid, and untrammeled" and he is "a man of exuberant fancy" (45). Whatever the king decides on becomes a fact as a result of his great power.
The most immediate expression of the king's barbarism is how he uses the idea of the public arena in his kingdom. Rather than make it a place where the kingdom can enjoy a public celebration or the arts, he turns it into the kingdom's court of justice. In the public arena, prisoners must choose between two doors, leaving their fate up to chance. Should the prisoner choose the door hiding a tiger, the entire kingdom must then witness the prisoner's bloody death. This form of "justice" reflects the king's barbarism, as he greatly enjoys the spectacle of watching the prisoner be forced to unwittingly choose his own fate. The narrator explains how the arena works: "the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, a structure which well deserved its name, for, although its form and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of human thought and action the rich growth of his barbaric idealism" (46).
Like the king, the kingdom is "semi-barbaric" as well. The king's subjects greatly enjoy this system of justice, which appeals to their barbarism but which also "refine[s]" and "culture[s]" their minds (45).
The king's daughter, the princess, is also "semi-barbaric." The narrator describes her as a young woman "as blooming as [the king's] most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and imperious as his own" (47). The princess's barbarism causes her to passionately love her lover: "she loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong" (47). It is thanks to the princess's barbarism that she is in the arena watching her lover choose his fate: "had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature it is probable that lady would not have been there, but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent from an occasion in which she was so terribly interested" (48). Additionally, the princess's barbarism is what causes her to hate the lady hiding behind the door whom her lover might wed: “The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door” (49).
Because "The Lady, or the Tiger?" ends on a question, we are not sure if the princess succumbed to the "barbaric" or "civilized" side of herself. The "barbaric" side would likely have influenced her to send her lover to his death over having to share him with a lady whom she hates. Her "civilized" side might have led her to save him, choosing her own heartbreak over her lover's death. Because these attributes are equally strong inside of the princess, as they are in her father, it is hard to tell which door she chose.
Justice
"The Lady, or the Tiger?" depicts a unique form of "justice" which we do not often see represented in contemporary society. What marks the form of justice in the king's arena is that it is completely up to chance. No one decides the fate of the prisoner; it depends on nothing but his own luck. In this way, it is also impartial: luck or chance does not care which door the prisoner chooses. In the story, the narrator refers to this kind of justice as a "poetic justice" in which the fate of the prisoner is decided by "an impartial and incorruptible chance" (45-6). That chance cannot be "corrupted" means that those in power do not have a say over the outcome of the trial and every prisoner is given an equal opportunity to save their own life—except, of course, when the princess gets involved.
According to the narrator of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" this form of justice is perfectly fair: "Its perfect fairness is obvious. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady: he opened either he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured or married. On some occasions, the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of the other" (47). The prisoner's fate is also immediately decided and set in stone, and therefore cannot be changed. He is married or murdered right there in front of the entire kingdom.
Thus, readers are left with an interesting question: is this form of justice truly "fair"? Is it fairer than the justice that we see in the modern world, where the fate of an accused person is decided by a judge or jury? In our current system of justice, there is the worry that the accused fate will be hindered by the jury's biases. Though there are often procedures in place to check that bias (e.g. screening a jury, choosing jury members that do not have personal stakes in the trial, etc), the court can never be certain that these procedures are 100% effective. In the end, those with more power are often given more of a say and different people receive different kinds of justice in the courtroom.
Is a justice that is based on chance any better? Obviously, it is not—innocent prisoners might be sent to their death simply because they had been accused of a crime. Similarly, guilty prisoners might be rewarded simply because they happen to choose the door that is hiding the princess. The only benefit to this kind of justice system seems to be the fact that it is "impartial" and "incorruptible"—but is it, really? The princess, thanks to her power, is able to corrupt the justice system and mold it to her own ends.
The princess's intrusion in the "perfect fairness" of this justice system also offers its own message. Because she is so powerful, she is able to use her power to discover what is behind each door. No one in the kingdom has ever done this before, not even her father. As a result, the fate of her lover is not left up to chance but is instead completely in her hands. She has the power to save him or send him to his death depending on her will. Perhaps the message of the princess's intrusion is that justice can never really be impartial as long as it is being dealt out by humans. Humans have a natural tendency to have biases, knowingly or unknowingly, and there will always be someone with enough power to tip the scales of justice in their favor.
Power
Hand-in-hand with the theme of justice comes the theme of power. Because this story is about the workings of a kingdom, we are given a setting in which a few characters (i.e. the king and the princess) are given great power, and the rest of the characters (i.e. the subjects) have very little. The king has so much power, in fact, that the quality of life of his subjects is entirely dependent on his fancy. As the narrator tells us, the king is powerful enough that every single one of his whims can be converted into fact: "He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing; and, when he and himself agreed upon any thing, the thing was done" (45).
He has the power to decide whether or not his subjects will prosper or suffer. In fact, the kind of justice that each subject receives is dependent upon whether the king is interested in their case: "When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance to interest the king, public notice was given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena" (46). The king has the power to upend tradition as he pleases and make new traditions of his own. The narrator writes, the king "knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy" (46). Additionally, because the king takes so much pleasure in his justice system, he does not allow anything to postpone the spectacle of the punishment or the reward: "It mattered not that [the prisoner] might already possess a wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection; the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme" (46). For anyone who might be stepping into the king's arena, "there was no escape" (47).
There is only one character in the story whose power matches that of the king. That is his daughter, the princess, who is able to completely subvert the king's system according to her own interests. Because of her great power, she is able to figure out which door is hiding the princess and which door is hiding the tiger: "Possessed of more power, influence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done,—she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors. . . [G]old, and the power of a woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess" (48). Here, it is suggested that the princess's power is not only in her status but also in her gender: it is thanks to her "woman's will" that she is able to discover the secret.
The princess's discovery of the truth has given her a power that no one—not even the king—has before possessed in the kingdom. She now has the power to determine whether her lover lives or dies. Her lover goes confidently, without doubt, in the direction that the princess sends him: "Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it" (50). In this way, the princess's power is absolute. She holds an entire life in her hands. This power is what makes the central question of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" so interesting. She has upended the "perfect justice" of the king's arena and has turned it instead into a matter of her own will. Very few people will ever hold that much power. It is hard to imagine what someone with that much power would choose.
Human Nature
Another theme of "The Lady, or the Tiger" is human nature. In fact, the story's question depends upon the reader's understanding of human nature more than anything else. The story does not give us a definite answer to the question of the young man's fate at the end of the story: that question is left for readers to interpret and judge for themselves. The reader's judgment about what happens at the end of the story depends entirely on what they think the princess will do.
As the narrator tells us, "the more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer." Deciding whether the princess chooses her lover's death or her lover's marriage to another "involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way" (50). In fact, as the narrator tells us, we cannot think about this question in terms of what we would do ourselves; instead we must consider the character of "that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy" (50). The princess, who is so powerful, nonetheless does not have the power to decide who she can love. Here, her power has failed. As the text asks, "she had lost him, but who should have him?" (50).
The fact that the princess gestures towards the door on the right without hesitation does not mean that she had not spent countless days thinking about the question of which door to choose. In fact, "she had known she would be asked" and prepared her decision accordingly (50). In order to answer this question, the reader must know the princess intimately—something that is impossible to do. The narrator himself does not know the answer. He writes, "[t]he question of her decision is not one to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it" (50). As a result, he leaves the question with us readers. We each will have our own interpretations of the princess's decision, depending upon how we have read her character.
