While Poe insisted that a short story must have every element lead to the conclusion, and the narrative contain many details to enhance the realism of the story and direct it to its conclusion, Stockton's narrative is lacking in the basic elements of real character development and a conclusion of plot, or denouement. And, yet, there are some similarities between these two tales. Both have elements of mystery and madness and the possibility of evil residing at the center of each human being. This "evil" is not in the sense of "bad," as in religious terms, but rather as what is termed "a species of psychological obsession."
- mystery - The reader wonders about the motives of the narrator. After he kills the old man and the police come, there is great suspense. The princess is complex and it is difficult to determine to which door she points.
- madness -...
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- Poe's narrator becomes deranged and kills the old man, then imagines that he hears the heart beating while the police are in his house. The king of Stockton's narrative is of such "exuberant fancy" that he controls the lives of his subjects by manipulating their fates with his "borrowed notions" of the public arena which acts as his hall of "justice."
- possibility of evil - Both Poe's narrator puts the power and life and deth in his own hands, and the barbaric king and his semi-barbaric daughter hold an excess of power over the lives of others, a condition for evil in their "poetic justice."
Poe, of course, is fascinated with the workings of the mind with respect to what is termed "hyperrationality" and a proclivity in human nature that cannot be explained away with rationality. For instance, the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" becomes fixated on the eye of the old man, perceiving it as the embodiment of evil, and after much examination of this "vulture eye," the narrator decides that the "evil eye" must be expurgated through death. Likewise, the king of an "irresistible will" and a certain hyperrationality, as well, insists that "the crooked be made straight," and the "uneven places crushed down"; that is, he, too feels the need to expurgate, although he supposedly provides the accused a choice by arranging for the person to stand in the arena and choose his/her own fate by selecting a door through which either a mate comes or a tiger. Neither choice is favorable; both involve a strain upon the emotions. In each story, the main characters suffer from a certain imbalance in their attitudes toward the lives of others, their sense of "justice," and in the evil that is at the core of their beings.
What are the consequences of choices in "The Lady, or the Tiger?" and "The Tell-Tale Heart"?
[While Enotes educators do not compose essays, we gladly offer suggestions.]
- In Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" the key to the question about the results of people's decisions lies in the title: the heart will inform on the person. The narrator is both irrational and delusional in his perceptions as he boasts of loving the old man, then turning around and murdering the man because of the "evil eye." [You can elaborate here]
- Here, then, the writer will want to trace the narrator's attempts to argue that he is not insane, but he descends into madness as he is tortured by his psychological obsession with the eye--"the uncontrollable terror." Then, too, there is something sinister in the heart of man which cannot be explained rationally. For, the narrator describes his murder.
- Interestingly, "Poe's interest is not in evil in the theological sense but as a species of psychological obsession."
- And, yet, he feels guilty afterwards and pays the consequences of this guilt as his beating heart tells on him, and he confesses in order to relieve the torment he endures.
Frank R. Stockton's "The Lady, or the Tiger?" presents situations in which choices are made, but the story has the added dimension of the satire of the barbaric king who "refines" the minds of his subjects with the public exhibitions" in the arena with his "decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance." Within this capricious environment of the semi-barbaric king, the princess and her young man are found out and the young man is to be "disposed of" in the arena where he must choose a door and will be either eaten by a tiger, or married to a young woman. The consequences of his choice to love the princess is to lose her regardless of what happens to him, and, possibly, to lose his own life, as well. No matter which way he loses, the king will derive pleasure from his loss.
The princess has also made her choice, and must lose her lover regardless of the door he selects.
Had it not been for the barbarism in her nature, it is probable that the lady would not have been there.
But, at the arena, she is possessive of another chance to make a choice: she can indicate to her lover the door to choose in order to save his life. Still, she is ambivalent about whether she wants to lose her lover to another to whom he will be married. However, she does know behind which door the maiden stands. When she moves her hand slightly, the young man knows that she points to the door on the right. Clearly, passions have reigned over reason in these decisions.