The Lady, or the Tiger?

The Lady, or the Tiger? is a short story by Frank R. Stockton, first published in 1882.

The story is set in a semi-barbaric kingdom where justice is decided by a strange public trial. An accused person must choose between two identical doors: behind one waits a beautiful woman whom he must marry, while behind the other is a hungry tiger that will kill him.

When a young man is accused of having a forbidden relationship with the king's daughter, he is forced to face this trial. The princess secretly discovers what lies behind each door and must decide whether to save the man she loves or surrender him to another woman.

Stockton ends the story without revealing which door the young man chooses. This famous unresolved ending turns The Lady, or the Tiger? into a study of jealousy, love, human nature, and moral choice, leaving the final judgment to the reader.

"In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric."