Answer and explanation:
This is quite a difficult question to answer simply because the author of the story does no want us to know for sure. He wants to leave us guessing.
In the story, a man of inferior birth falls in love with the daughter of a semi-barbaric king. The princess is similar to her father, as we can see in the way the narrator talks of her, "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." Just like the king, this woman is used to imposing her will and having things her way.
When the king finds out about her forbidden romance, he sends the man of inferior birth to be tried in a most semi-barbaric way. He has to choose between two doors. One will have a hungry tiger behind it, the other will have a woman. If he opens the door to the tiger, he will die. On the other hand, if he finds the woman, he will be forced to marry her.
The princess is now torn. She does love the man, so she finds out which door has the tiger with the intention of saving him. However, she is a jealous woman, and does not wish him to marry someone else. As the excerpt shows:
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 cheek 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 despairing 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?
For that reason, I dare say she showed him the door to the tiger. This is not a kind, warm-hearted woman. She is spoiled, jealous, angry. She is probably the kind of person who would rather see her loved one die then to see him happily (or unhappily) married to someone else.
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?
