The story, “The lady or the tiger,” leaves an unsettling ending. It leaves on a cliffhanger that lets the readers anxious to know what the fate of the commoner would be. There could be many conclusions to what the fate of the commoner would be, but in every single way, the commoner would never get the chance to be with the princess due to his wealth status and her overbearing father.
First of all, I think the princess would have chosen to kill her love rather than give him up to another woman. Feelings like jealousy, anger, and hatred probably aroused in the princess, so letting her lover go to another woman was probably the last choice she had on her mind. Envy makes people do appalling things and things to the extent to achieve what one wants. In one line in the story, the princess herself said that it would be as if her soul burned in agony. The choice of sadly killing her lover would most likely be the conclusion of this story for the sole reason of jealousy and what the princess wants. To put it in simpler terms, if she can’t get him, no one can get him, especially the beautiful lady that stands behind the door. Of course, killing her lover would be so painful, but it would not be as painful as for the princess seeing her ex-lover living off a life with the beautiful woman without her. She would have to live through her life knowing that she would never get the chance to be with him. Consequently, if she chose to kill her lover, she would remember him forever, but also experience that pain of losing him and not having a future with him. However, the pain would not be as unpleasant as the pain of witnessing her love move on without her.
In the end, whether or not the choice of the princess is to kill her own lover, I think jealousy would overpower one’s choices. Surely anyone in the princess’s spot would also crack under jealousy. In this situation, would most people give up their own happiness, or be selfish and do what they want? In the end, we can’t technically blame the princess for feeling jealousy if her lover will have a future with someone else. Of course, my judgement out of the limited information may be way out of line, however, there are no wrong answers. The author himself wanted the readers to make the conclusion and take it upon ourselves to imagine the end of the story line. So, given the circumstances, the princess would probably not have sacrificed her happiness for his life, even though it would lead to killing him in the end sadly.
