Frank R. Stockton gave us a great fable about the power of decision and consequence. After the king finds out his daughter is romantically involved with a man of lower station, he has the man put in prison. As is the king's custom, the man will be brought out into an arena and forced to choose a door: behind one door is a woman he will be required to marry - behind the other is a ferocious tiger. The man can take solace in the fact that the king's daughter knows which door holds the lady and which holds the beast. In his pursuit of freedom, the man makes the assumption that his love interest would rather see him marry another woman than be eaten by a tiger. Assumptions rarely have good endings.
In this story, both the daughter and her lover lived under the king's oppressive rule. This insane judicial system invented by the king was a product of his arrogance, sense of infallibility and residual barbarism, "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."
The king was so diabolical that he used torture and death as an ingredient in his own version of a caste system, "if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this lady, he was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence."
The story addresses the prevailing cruelty that seems to dwell within the human heart. Even those who are being victimized are happily entertained by the suffering of their fellow victims, "The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great trial days, they never knew whether they were to witness a bloody slaughter or a hilarious wedding." This same thing happens today on reality shows of which millions of viewers watch the participants subject one another to emotional torture and humiliation.
"Never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of the king." Eventually. someone rises up against any form of slavery or oppression. In this case, the boyfriend's reward was either to marry someone other than the king's daughter or become cat food. In the end, Stockton leaves readers hanging in regard to the fate of the boyfriend.
In this story, both the daughter and her lover lived under the king's oppressive rule. This insane judicial system invented by the king was a product of his arrogance, sense of infallibility and residual barbarism, "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."
The king was so diabolical that he used torture and death as an ingredient in his own version of a caste system, "if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this lady, he was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence."
The story addresses the prevailing cruelty that seems to dwell within the human heart. Even those who are being victimized are happily entertained by the suffering of their fellow victims, "The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great trial days, they never knew whether they were to witness a bloody slaughter or a hilarious wedding." This same thing happens today on reality shows of which millions of viewers watch the participants subject one another to emotional torture and humiliation.
"Never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of the king." Eventually. someone rises up against any form of slavery or oppression. In this case, the boyfriend's reward was either to marry someone other than the king's daughter or become cat food. In the end, Stockton leaves readers hanging in regard to the fate of the boyfriend.