The lady or the tiger

Passionate Love and Jealousy
Which overpowers the other, love or jealousy? Can love really go so far as to cause someone agony just to save a life? Can jealousy go so far as to inflict murder? When looking at the story in more depth, I think the princess indeed directed the young man toward the lady because of the passionate love that she had toward him. Due to the strong emotion that she had for him, the princess would not have wanted him killed or even hurt by the tiger. Stockton writes “ she sat there, paler and whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anxious faces,” by the princess facial and mental expression, if she were barbaric enough to send the young man to his death, she would have had a smile, or some sort of expression, that proved her to be barbaric as her father, the king. But the semi-barbaric princess was in love with the man.

Her face was pale and white because she was about to send him into the arms of another woman, and never again would she be in his arms. The princess was very sad and heartbroken because she was about to witness the tragedy first hand. The princess said to herself if her lover were wed to another, it would be like having her “soul burned in agony.” However, being quick to make decisions will land you with that prospect; on the other side, the truth is the opposite. You have to look at why the princess hated the woman. She hated the woman because she was jealous and envious of her. She was jealous of the fact that she was about to send her lover into the arms of another blushing and willing maiden. As the story states, “ How often, in her walking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the tiger!”

This shows that sending her lover to a wild tiger did not present itself as the best solution. Moreover, even though the king was powerful and strict, the princess had possessed herself of the secret of the doors, which proves that she had overcome all of her fears for her sincere love of the youth. Perhaps, in the end, she would rather see him alive than dead, even if it meant he was paired with some other woman. If she truly loved him, she would do everything in her power to make him as happy as possible, even if that resulted in her own misery. When her father, the king, found out about the existence of the love affair between the princess and the young man, he immediately put the young man in prison, and a day was selected for his trial of punishment. As the father stated, the princess was the apple of his eye and was loved by him above all humanity. The king hated the thought of having anyone who was not a member of a royal family love his daughter. It never mattered to the king how the affair turned out because he felt he very strongly about having the young man be disposed of for loving his daughter. Realizing that his daughter was involved with a young man who was below the royal stature, the king chose to have the young man placed in a situation where he could not escape punishment. However, the princess appears to act chiefly in her own self-interest. In starting the affair, she showed complete disregard for societal norms and for how her actions would reflect upon the royal lineage. She let her emotions outweigh the logical pattern that she should have followed; her love overpowers the class separation.

So what is to say that the princess will not let that happen again at the judgment day for her lover? Oftentimes emotion overpowers logic, but deep in her heart, she knows she could never tolerate to see her lover sent to the door leading him to suffer such a tragic death. Ultimately, the fate of the love between the princess and the young man lies in the hands of the princess. And she was very much in love with this young man and she went through the trouble of finding out the doors. She did not want him to choose to open a door that would result in such a cruel death. Often humans must choose between two difficult choices, which might even decide the fate of another human being. The reasons may vary, but often times it is to decide the fate of another human being. In response to the story, the moral dilemma tells us the princess love was not as strong as we could imagine, but that’s only the first prospect we have in mind as natural. People normally would say as there will be no constant reminder of their past lover, there memoires of that person will fade over time, and the pain will automatically be lessened; after all, time heals all wounds. However, this is not what love is all about. People who think true love fades, they are standing in the shadows of the big, grand, and powerful existence of love. And so they choose to deny the existence of love altogether, because they are too small to have it.

Passionate love and jealousy can make people do things that might seem unthinkable. We are witnessing the princess strong love, will and bravery. We see that for this love, she sacrificed herself and engaged in risky behavior that some people couldn’t even imagine. Doing all those unthinkable things, she would not only overcome all of her fears, but also would cross the line from being barbaric to not being barbaric. Since there are some important factor like jealousy and anger inside her, but from the story we found that the princess find the secret of the doors and made a plan for her lover’ survival. Having these two powerful feelings combined makes a strong fate between the loves in these two. The story of Frank Stockton, “The lady or the Tiger?” is one of the justifications on both side, I choose to believe the love is the feeling that gives power to people, and that is the main reason we are living on this earth by generations and generations. When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.