Skip to main content

In the story “The Lady or the Tiger”, the narrator says that the king “was greatly given to self-communing.” What does this say about the...

The semi-barbaric king of a mythical land in Frank Stockton's short story "The Lady or the Tiger" is, quite simply, a despot, a ruler with total power who often uses it unfairly. The king rules in a completely undemocratic fashion, seemingly ignoring any input from advisors. Once he has made up his mind, there is no arguing against him. His decisions are based only on his judgement and are final: 



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.



By "self communing" the king has only one adviser, and that is himself. That his laws and decrees could be considered unfair would never occur to him.


His plan for justice in the arena is a perfect example of his despotism. That this is cruel and not even close to being fair, is lost on the king. His justice could cause an innocent man to be brutally killed by a "hungry tiger," or, on the other hand, a guilty man to get away free and even be married to a lady, "suitable to his years and station."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more