When reading The Tale of the Tiger Woman, the reader will experience the feelings of sympathy, empathy, repulsion, and confusion. The repulsion will affect the reader due to the girl realizing that her brother was killed and eaten by the tiger woman when the tiger woman gave her a snack “but in fact it was a human finger, cold and clammy” (CFT 27) and when the girl noticed that what “she thought was a rope was a long intestine” (CBT 27). The reader feels sympathy/empathy for the girl due to the situation she is in as well as the fact that her brother has just died. The feeling of confusion will come from the fact that when the girl gets in a tree to try and escape the tiger woman and instead of the tiger woman going up the tree herself, the tiger woman leaves to get other tigers to do it for her which allows the girl to escape. The question in many readers’ minds might be like that of my own; “If the tiger woman is actually a tiger, why did she not go up the tree herself?”
Happily Ever After
Or, Literary Theory and the Fairy Tale Genre
I was also questioning why the tiger woman didn’t just climb up the tree to catch the girl. It seems like later on in the story, she calls other tigers to get the girl down from the tree, and they end up turning on her because the girl has been replaced with clothes. If those tigers could climb the tree to see if the little girl was there, why couldn’t the tiger woman? Why did the tiger woman call other tigers to help her if it would’ve meant she’d have to share her catch with the others? Ultimately, this version left me with more questions than answers. I like that you laid out the common emotions in response to this story. I also sympathized with the girl, whose brother is devoured horrifically and who is helpless until she is rescued by a man. The characters here really seem like they serve the same functions as the original Little Red Riding Hood, but in different ways; instead of the granny being devoured, she’s just impersonated and the little brother instead becomes the “sacrificial lamb” for the little girl’s escape. The way in which this story was constructed doesn’t make as much sense as the previous versions. It would’ve made sense to me if the little girl ran away and went home like in other versions of LRRH. I’m guessing the tree thing was the author’s attempt to find some way for the tiger woman to get punished for her actions, but it’s interesting that he had her punished by other tigers who likely would’ve acted the same way as the tiger woman.
I think the feeling of confusion you mentioned here is really crippling to the story for me at least. It removed any tension from the story, and was just a glaring plot hole that was absurd to the point it felt lazy. Other plot holes include why the tiger woman let the girl leave the cave in the first place, and why the tiger woman brought over more tigers if tigers in this universe can’t climb trees.