The lady or the tiger

Literary Techniques

1. Coincidence plays a rather important role in the plot — there is a whole series of incidents that turn out opposite to what the character had hoped and expected. Did O'Henry use coincidence to excess? Does it make the story sound less credible? How did the author manage to make his readers accept the coincidences?

2. What effect does the series of coincidences serve? Does it suggest the irony of circumstance? Does it increase the unexpectedness of the climax?

3. How do those incidents contribute thematically and artistically?

4. O'Henry is a master of surprise endings. Is this skill revealed in the story?

5. How well did the author use dialogue to create real characters and episodes? Choose several passages of dialogue that can prove the effectiveness of this technique.

6. What did the author gain by the detailed description of the anthem and the night scene?

7. Does the detailed description of Soapy's thoughts serve the same purpose? Does the scene affect your understanding of the message? Does the case of retardation heighten the reader's suspense?

8. O'Henry made several digressions. Find instances of these digressions. Are they unnecessarily interruptive? Do they advance the actions of the story? Do they help to explain plot or character, or both? Do they in any way affect your attitude to the events of the story? Do they add to or interfere with the enjoyment of the reader?

 

Plot Structure

1 Are the events arranged chronologically? Do they catch andhold the reader's interest?

2 What is the role of the exposition?

3 What is the climax of the story?

4. Is there a denouement in the story?

5. What did the author achieve by leaving out the denouement?

6. What advantage, if any, did the story gain by its plot structure?

7. What can you say to evaluate the contribution of the plot structure to the exciting narrative of the story? To what extent does it affect the general impression produced by the story?

 

TEXT 2.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

 

MARK TWAIN

 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 — April 21, 1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, writer, and lecturer. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is also known for his quotations. During his lifetime, Clemens became a friend to presidents, artists, leading industrialists, and European royalty.

Clemens enjoyed immense public popularity, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. American author William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".

 

 

Years ago I arrived one day at Salamanca, New York, eastward bound; must change cars there and take the sleeper train. There were crowds of people there, and they were swarming into the long sleeper train and packing it full, and it was a perfect purgatory¹ of dust and confusion and gritting of teeth and soft, sweet, and low profanity. I asked the young man in the ticket office if I could have a sleeping-section, and he answered "No," with a snarl that shrivelled me up like burned leather. I went off, smarting under this insult to my dignity, and asked another local official, supplicatingly, if I couldn't have some poor little corner, somewhere in a sleeping car; but he cut me short with a venomous "No, you can't; every corner is full. Now, don't bother me any more"; and he turned his back and walked off. My dignity was in a state now which cannot be described. I was so ruffled that — well, I said to my companion, "If these people knew who I am they — "But my companion cut me short there — "Don't talk such folly," he said; "If they did know who you are, do you suppose it would help your high-mightiness² to a vacancy in a train which has no vacancies in it?"

This did not improve my condition any to speak of, but just then I observed that the colored porter of a sleeping car had his eye on me. I saw his dark countenance light up. He whispered to the uniformed conductor, punctuating with nods and jerks toward me, and straightway this conductor came forward, oozing politeness from every pore.

"Can I be of any service to you?" he asked. "Will you have a place in the sleeper?"

"Yes," I said, "and much oblige me, too. Give me anything — anything will answer."

"We have nothing left but the big family stateroom," he continued, "with two berths and a couple of armchairs in it, but it is entirely at your disposal. Here, Tom, take these satchels aboard."

Then he touched his hat and we and the colored Tom moved along. I was bursting to drop just one little remark to my companion, but I held in and waited. Tom made us comfortable in that sumptuous, great apartment, and then said, with many bows and a perfect affluence of smiles:

"Now, is dey anything you want, sah? Case you kin have jes' anything you wants. It don't make nodifference what it is."⁴

"Can I have some hot water and a tumbler at nine tonight — blazing hot? I asked. "You know about the right temperature for a hot Scotch punch?"

"Yes, sah, dat you kin; you kin pen on it; I'll get it myself."

"Good. Now, that lamp is hung too high. Can I have a big coach candle fixed up just at the head of my bed, so that I can read comfortably?"

"Yes, sah, you kin; I'll fix her up myself, an' I'll fix her so she'll burn all night. Yes, sah; an' you can jes' call for anything you want, and dish yer whole railroad'll be turned wrong end up an' inside out for to get it for you. Dat's so." And he disappeared.

Well, I tilted my head back, hooked my thumbs in my armholes, smiled a smile on my companion, and said, gently:

"Well, what do you say now?"

My companion was not in the humor to respond, and didn't. The next moment that smiling black face was thrust in at the crack of the door, and this speech followed:

"Laws bless you, sah, I knowed you in a minute. I told de conductah so. Laws! I knowed you de minute I sot eyes on you."

"Is that so, my boy?" (Handing him a quadruple fee.) "Who am I?"

"Jenuel McClellan," and he disappeared again.

 

NOTES

¹ a purgatory — any state or place of temporary punishment (here it is used figuratively)

² your high-mightiness — ironical: on analogy with your highness

³ oozing politeness Irom every pore - ironical: looking extremely polite

⁴ The coloured porter speaks non-standard American English — the so-called "Black English", spoken by the uneducated Negro population in the USA. The phonetic features of "Black English" are recorded by means of deviations from the spelling norm.

Plot Structure and Literary Techniques

1. How is the story structured? Trace the retardation and unexpected turn of events used in the story. Do they contribute to the humorous effect?

2. To what extent does the title prepare the reader for what is to follow? Why is it useful for the author to arouse expectation in the mind of the reader?

3. How sucessfully is the surprise ending technique used in the story?

4. By which technique do you learn more about the characters — by what they say and do, or by what the narrator tells about them?

5. Cite specific instances in the story that bring character to life.

6. How does the narrator differ from his companion in temperament and character? How does each of them view the prospects of getting a ticket for the train? Does it tell you anything about the characters?

7. What is the narrator's reaction when treated disrespectfully? Is this reaction contrasted to his reaction when treated with slavish politeness?

8. Was it really a lamp that he wanted, or was it rather his intention to show his companion how Tom fussed over his whims?

9. How did M. Twain reveal the satisfaction of the narrator at being danced attendance on?

10. How well did the author use dialogue to create reality in character and episode? Choose several passages of dialogue that could also have been written in narrative form, and show why the former approach is more effective as a literary technique.

11. How faithfully did M. Twain record the features of Black English in Tom's speech?

12. Would the story lend itself well to dramatic presentation as a film or a stage-production?

13. What does the story tell us about the author's attitude to social vices and weaknesses of human nature?

14. Does the story exhibit M. Twain's excellent sense of humour?

15. Thomas E. Edison, an American inventor, wrote: "The average American loves his family. If he has any love left over for some other person, he generally selects Mark Twain." How would you account for that?

 

 

 

 

TEXT 3.

THE LADY OR THE TIGER?

 

FRANK R. STOCKTON

Frank R. Stockton (April 5, 1834 - April 20, 1902), was an American writer and humorist, best known today for a series of innovative children's fairy tales that were widely popular during the last decades of the 19th century. Stockton avoided the didactic moralizing common to children's stories of the time, instead using clever humor to poke at greed, violence, abuse of power and other human foibles, describing his fantastic characters' adventures in a charming, matter-of-fact way in stories like "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" (1885) and "The Bee-Man of Orn" (1887).

His most famous fable is "The Lady or the Tiger?" (1882), about a man sentenced to an unusual punishment for having a romance with a king's beloved daughter. Taken to the public arena, he is faced with two doors, behind one of which is a hungry tiger that will devour him. Behind the other is a beautiful lady-in-waiting, whom he will have to marry, if he finds her. While the crowd waits anxiously for his decision, he sees the princess among the spectators, who points him to the door on the right. The lover starts to open the door and....the story ends abruptly there. Did the princess save her love by pointing to the door leading to the lady-in-waiting, or did she prefer to see her lover die rather than see him marry someone else? That discussion hook has made the story a staple in English classes in American schools, especially since Stockton was careful never to hint at what he thought the ending would be.

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 untrammelled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing; and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done. When every member of his domestic and political systems mo­ved smoothly in its appointed course, his nature was bland and genial; but whenever there was a little hitch¹, and some of his orbs² got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, for nothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight, and crush down uneven places.

Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified was that of the public arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and cultured.

But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. The arena of the king was built, not to give the people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to view the inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions and hungry jaws, but for purposes far better adapted to widen and develop the mental energies of the people. This vast amphitheater, with its encircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.

When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient impor­tance to interest the king, public notice was given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, — a structure which well deserved its name; for, although its form and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of human thought and action the rich growth of his barbaric idealism.

When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king, surrounded by his court, sat high up on his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath him opened, and the accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater. Directly opposite him, on the other side of the enclosed space, were two doors, exactly alike and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege of the person on trial, to walk directly to these doors and open one of them. He could open either door he pleased: he was subject to no guidance or influence but that of the aforementioned impartial and incorrup­tible chance. If he opened the one, there came out of it a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which immediately sprang upon him, and tore him to pieces, as a punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hired mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a fate.

But, if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects; and to this lady he was immediately married, as a reward of his inno­cence. It mattered not that he might already possess a wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection: the king allowed no such subordinate arrange­ments to interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The exercises, as in the other instance, took place imme­diately, and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous airs³ on golden horns and treading an epithalamic measure⁴, advanced to where the pair stood, side by side; and the wedding was promptly and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his path, led his bride to his home.

This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice. Its perfect fairness is obvious. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady: he opened either he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured or married. On some occasions the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of the other. The decisions of this tribunal were not only fair, they were positively determinate: the accused person was instantly punished if he found himself guilty; and, if innocent, he was rewarded on the spot, whether he liked it or not. There was no escape from the judgment of the king's arena.

The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great trial days, they never knew whether they were to witness a bloody slaughter or a hilarious wedding. This element of uncertainty lent an interest to the occa­sion which it could not otherwise have attained. Thus, the masses were entertained and pleased, and the thinking part of the commu­nity could bring charge of unfairness against this plan; for did not the accused person have the whole matter in his own hands?

This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and imperious as his own. As is usual in such cases, shewas the apple of his eye, and was loved by him above all humanity. Among his courtiers was a young man that fineness of blood and lowness of station common to the conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to a degree unsurpassed in all this kingdom; and she loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceeding warm and strong. This love affair moved on happily for many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison, and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. This, of course, was an especially important occasion; and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly interested in the workings and development of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of a king. In after-years such things became commonplace enough; but then they were, in no slight degree, novel and startling.

The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges, in order that the young man might have a fitting bride in case fate did not determine for him a different destiny. Of course, everybody knew that the deed with which theaccusedwaschargedhadbeendone.He had loved theprincess, and neither he, she, nor any one else thought of denying the fact; but the king would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the workings of the tribunal, in which he took such great delight and satisfaction. No matter how the affair turned out, the youth would be disposed of; and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure in watching the course of events, which would determine whether or not the young man had done wrong in allowing himself to love the princess.

The appointed day arrived. From far and near the people gathered, and thronged the great galleries of the arena; and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves against its outside walls. The king and his court were in their places, opposite the twin doors, — those fateful portals, so terrible in their similarity.

All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover of the princess walked into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with a low hum of admiration and anxiety. Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived among them. No wonder the princess loved him! What a terrible thing for him to be there!

As the youth advanced into the arena, he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king: but he did not think at all of that royal personage; his eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the right of her father. Had it not been for the moiety⁵ of barbarism in her nature, it is probable that lady would not have been there; but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested. From the moment that the decree had gone forth, that her lover should decide his fate in the king's arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event: and the various subjects connected with it. Possessed of more power, influence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done, — she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors. She knew in which of the two rooms, that lay behind those doors, stood the rage of the tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady. Through these thick doors, heavily curtained with skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within, to the person who should approach to raise the latch of one of them; but gold, and the power of a woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess.

And not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, should he be proved innocent of the crime, of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess hated her. Often had she seen, or imagined that she had seen, this fair creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were perceived and even returned. Now and then she had seen them talking together; it was but for a moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space; it may have been on most unimportant topics, but how could she know that? The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door.

When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye met hers as she sat there paler and whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by that power of quick perception which is given to those whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady. He had expected her to know it. He understood her nature, and his soul was assured that she would never rest until she had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other lookers-on, even to the king. The only hope for the youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon the success of the princess in discovering this mystery; and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had succeeded, as in his soul he knew she would succeed.

Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question: "Which?" If was as plain to her as if he shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it must be answered in another.

Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man in the arena.

He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the; right, and opened it.

Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady?

 The more, we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, but upon that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him?

How often, in her waking 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!

But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing check and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk 'away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the hilarious mul­titude, in which her one desparing shriek was lost and drowned!

Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity?

And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood!

Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished deliberation. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and, without the slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right.

The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door, — the lady, or the tiger?

 

 

NOTES

¹ a hitch — a difficulty which delays something for a while

² orbs (usually plural) — a poetic word for eyes

³ to blow joyous airs — to produce the sounds of joyous tunes

⁴ to tread an epithalamic measure — to step rhythmically following the beat of a wedding song (an epithalamium — a song or poem in celebration of a marriage

⁵ a moiety  — a half share or division of something

Plot Structure

1. Is the plot of the story incomplete? What is the climax of the story? At what point does me author break off the narration?

2. How does the author create and increase the suspense as the plot unfolds?

3. What is the major conflict based on?

4. In what way docs the story resemble a fairy tale? What role does the setting play?

5. What effect is produced by the unexpected shift from narration to reasoning?

Style, Message

1. How does the first part of the story (the narrative) differ from the end of the story (the reasoning) in terms of style?

2. Is the diction of the narrative in keeping with its fantastic plot? Does the end acquire an ironic ring? Support your view with reference to the text.

3. How does the author accentuate the never-ending question — the lady or the tiger?

4. What ending does the story suggest — a happy end, or an ending which would turn out to be quite opposite to what the accused man had hoped and expected? Would that be a case of dramatic irony?

5. Do you believe that love conquers all? Or do you rather think that jealousy is stronger than love?

6. What is the author's intention?

7. What effect did the story have upon you?