The Lady, or the Tiger?

When an accused subject is brought to trial in the arena, he is found guilty if he opens the door behind which stands “a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which immediately [springs] upon him and [tears] him to pieces as a punishment” (Paragraph 5).

Although the king’s justice system is described as fair and objective, that claim is directly contradicted by his ruthless choice of punishment. Instead, the tiger, which is intended to be suggestive of wild, faraway lands, echoes the king’s “semi-barbaric” appetite for violent spectacle (Paragraph 1). As a result, the king’s seemingly sensible reasoning is revealed to be a pretense to satisfy his cruelty. This irony exposes the king’s underlying motives: he wants power and control over his subjects, who leave the arena “with bowed heads and downcast hearts, [...] mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a fate” (Paragraph 5).

If a subject brought to trial in the arena opens the door behind which stands the lady, he is found innocent, and “to this lady he [is] immediately married, as a reward.