Kirby and I both enjoy stories. And when I went clueless after he referenced “The tiger, or the lady?” He promptly gave me reading homework. Later that night I received a text. While unconventional it was not surprising, as he taught for much of his career, partly in Thailand. “2 page synopsis, double spaced. conclude with an analysis of what you would do if you were the princess.”

I didn’t respond to him that night. And neither did I respond after he sent a GIF of a frustrated boy tapping his fingers with the other hand supporting his scowl. I just showed up the next day with two pages and placed them on his desk. Back in high school I would have dreaded this assignment. Now, I’m not sure what happened to me. Perhaps I’m more of thinking lad these days. Or maybe when a good sir like Kirby , a thinker himself, gives you an assignment, you best write it.

Read the full story here . My response to Kirby is below

Comment your thoughts (all three of you) after reading mine.

If I Were The Princess… 

It likely skipped Frank Stockton’s wildest imaginations that a 23-year-old man would be thinking this after reading his seminal piece “The lady, or the tiger?” some 140 years after writing it. Yet his folklore has brought this wondering upon the hearts and minds of many and will continue throughout time.  

Only certain stories have this effect, tapping into our human experience and expressing our deepest yearnings and dilemmas. The lady, or the tiger, is set in past medieval times where kings ruled and did as they wished. The king of the land enjoyed pleasing his fancy in peculiar ways, particularly in the realm of justice. When a person was accused of a crime he was brought through a system of chance, or some might say fate, “where crime was punished, or virtue rewarded.” An accused man would enter a public arena, surrounded by the king and all the king’s people who found interest in the matter. In the arena were two doors. Behind one stood a ferocious tiger ready to shred him to pieces and mash his bones. Behind the other, was a sweet belle, hand-picked for his very liking, who would immediately take his hand in a celebrated marriage. 

The crux of the story, however, and perhaps the sharp edge piercing into the reader’s well-to-do conscience, is when the king’s daughter finds her terribly wonderful beau, a countryside lad spilling with charisma, tall, handsome, and the bravest in the land. The problem is her royalty clashes with his low status, and her father, disapproving of the social mixing, sentences the poor lad to the doors. 

Yet because of her will and charming finesse, she discovers which door holds the tiger and which, the lady. The problem is she knows the lady, and her views of the lady are nothing but rancorous. Jealousy filled her heart. 

So when the time came to make the fateful decision in the crowded arena,  the young man steered his eyes across the way into hers, and in that cute, intimate telekinesis some couples have, she went unnoticed in telling him which door to choose. 

Stockton leaves us the man grasping one of the doors and the question: “What was behind the door? The tiger, or the lady?

So if you were the princess, what would you do? 

I guess what we are really asking is whether the weight of her jealousy at the thought of her lover fancying the rival lady was greater than her compassionate desire for the man to be well and alive. But would he be well? Was she so confident in the intimacy of their relationship that she knew that by letting him marry another woman, it would be worse for him than death, so she would end his life like a wounded steer behind the barn? I can’t speak for her. 

Interestingly we know that she “possessed the secret of the doors” And I posit we too can think of a moment where we were left with a secret and a choice, and without punishment for either one we choose. Integrity. 

Now if it were me I’d choose the lady. With my love for him so great I’d rather see him breathing than mauled. I would get over my jealousy and hey, the man may even come back to me. But it’s not realistic to think I can empathize with her entire emotional landscape and the contradictions within them. I think it’s shortsighted when I hear people see the news of a heinous crime or fit of stupidity and say “How could he/she!? I would never do that!” I say that because we can never know what we would do in another person’s shoes because the very question of “What would you do in their situation?” is impossible to answer because there is no you to draw wisdom from. You are embodied in them. Their experiences, their traumas, their personality, their weaknesses, and their short-sightedness. 

So, when it all comes down to what I think she did. I think she lived a complex, royal life, where everything was accessible to her except love. And I think she grew accustomed to her father’s barbaric nature, and where we might see a killing as gruesomely horrific, to her it was Thursday. I’d say she let the emotions get the best of her after seeing that rosy-cheeked lady.  I think the tiger ate that day. Did she regret her decision? Yes. But the tiger still ate. 

What would you do if you were the princess?