Analysis of The Time Period in The Lady, Or The Tiger by Frank Richard Stockton

The author who wrote “The Lady, or the Tiger”, Frank Richard Stockton, was an American popular novelist and short-story writer of mainly humorous fiction. Frank was born on April 5,1834 in Philadelphia, PA and died on April 20, 1902 in Washington, D.C. Most of his work was children’s literature. Frank has written and published over 50 books throughout his career. He first started publishing stories in 1855. But his first notable novel for children was published in 1870 titled Ting-a-Ling Tales After 1887 Frank started drifting away from children's literature to writing for mainly adults. One of Stockton’s most popular published pieces was his adventure novel The Adventures of Captain Horn. This novel was so popular among the American readers, which led to this novel being the third best-selling book in the country that year.

The Lady, or the Tiger was written in the 1880s. The 1880s were called and referred to as the Gilded age. The 1880s were a devastating time period for the Americans. Over 6 wars occurred over the period of the 1880s, Aceh war, War of the pacific, First Boer War, Mahdist War Anglo-Egyptian War, and Sino-French War. This decade also occurred at the epicenter of the Secondary Industrial Revolution. So it was a very bad state of time In the 1880s. So Frank Stockton’s purpose or motivation for writing this short story must've been to escape the wars and hardships from his everyday life, and to let his creativity to be reached to the public. The story takes place “In the very olden time according to story. Frank describes the setting to be similar to a Colosseum in Rome, or kind of like an arena where gladiators and people fought and faced their fate. “It’s also a make believe kingdom visioned through the imagination of Stockton”. Now Frank doesn’t specifically tell us in the story when exactly it took place but it could be from 70 AD to 1300. So in theory I can’t find information about the time period that the text was written because it’s not apprised by the author, but I already was able to display information from when the author published it and written it. 

I can though establish information about the colosseum Frank imagined in the olden times, the colosseum will most likely be referred to the one In Rome. There were 2 types of executions. Crucifixion and beheading. According to the website tribunes and triumphs. It states, “The punishment of crucifixion was chiefly inflicted on slaves and the worst kind of criminals, including Christians. The criminal was stripped of his clothes and nailed or bound to the cross. The whole body weight being supported by the stretched arms. When nailed to the cross there was a massive strain put on the wrists, arms and shoulders often resulting in a dislocation of the shoulder and elbow joints and the pressure on chest made it impossible to take full breaths. Crucifixion was one of the worst ways to die because of the amount of pain It hurt your mental and your entire body. The website also states that No Roman citizen could be sentenced to crucifixion. Roman Citizens were not crucified (Roman Crucifixion), they were beheaded. This explains why, despite being found guilty of the same crime, St. Paul and St. Peter faced different fates. 

St. Paul was beheaded because he was a Roman Citizen. St. Peter who was not a Roman citizen, was crucified. It’s also to be noted that Jesus was crucified but not because he wasn’t a roman citizen, but because of starting roman violence. There are plenty of reasons of why he was crucified. “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”. This sentence from the story depicts the colosseum Stockton imagined. He pictured it to be gathered, surrounded by people, and the king to be a powerful person with a lot of power and will. Generally during this time period people were horrifically tortured and not treated adequately. Most common people in the olden times had no saying, It was generally the kings and queens who ruled everything. “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”. This second piece of text from the story outlines that the king and the arenas were not taken lightly and wanted the absolute vicious and bloodthirsty animals chosen for the arena so nobody has an easy death or time to heaven. “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.” 

This final piece of text from the story explains another way of utilizing another way of justice or when someone did a bad deed and was accused of that crime, the crime then had to be interested by the king himself. The 2 doors would choose your fate, either eaten by a ferocious tiger or married by a beautiful young woman. This wasn’t used in the olden times, but they might have but there’s no Information on administering this type of punishment. So in general the time period the text was written in was extremely bad for people and caused millions of deaths.