Now considered a classic American short story, Frank R. Stockton’s “The Lady, or the Tiger?” exemplifies the effort of 19th-century authors to develop a distinctly American humor that, as Mark Twain explains, “depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling.” Although his contemporaries generally preferred to depict typical American life, Stockton instead attempted to subvert traditional fairy tales. By using a conventional narrative form, he turned readers’ expectations on their heads, thus creating surprise and entertainment that provokes critical reflection. Storytelling in Stockton’s writing is as much a performance as it is a literary endeavor: Through irony, exaggeration, and an emphatic narrator, the author offers a critique of systems of justice and power, themes that were particularly relevant to the cultural and political context of the United States in the late-19th century.

The story’s humorous tone is set by a dynamic, pompous narrating voice. The narrator uses exuberant language to praise the king, making him an evidently biased, and thus unreliable, narrator. Humor is created by the conflation of the narrator’s exaggerated claims and the horrific, nonsensical facts he relates.