Revision Summary: The Tiger King (Vistas)
Unit at a glance
- Single prose story (no poem) from NCERT Vistas, Class 12 English.
- Satirical narrative about the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram, nicknamed the Tiger King.
- Central focus: an astrologer’s prophecy that the king will die because of a tiger.
- Story spans the king’s birth, his obsessive tiger-hunting campaign, and his ironic death.
- Common theme: human arrogance and the futility of trying to escape fate.
- Tone: humorous, ironic, and critical of power and vanity.
Prose
Summary
The story recounts how the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram earns the title Tiger King. At birth, astrologers predict he will die one day because of a tiger. Determined to prove them wrong, he vows to kill 100 tigers. He bans others from hunting, kills 99 tigers, and faces a crisis when tigers become extinct in his state. He marries into a royal family with many tigers and reaches 99. The 100th tiger is secretly obtained from Madras; he shoots it but misses. The tiger is killed by his hunters and taken in procession. Years later, on his son’s birthday, the king buys a cheap wooden tiger. A splinter from it causes an infection that kills him, fulfilling the prophecy.
Setting
Pratibandapuram state (fictional Indian princely state) with forests, palaces, and British-era influences; events also briefly involve Madras.
Main characters
- Tiger King (Jilani Jung Jung Bahadur): Arrogant ruler obsessed with killing 100 tigers to defy his prophesied death.
- Chief astrologer: Predicts the king’s death will come from a tiger; later dismissed in the king’s mind.
- Dewan: Loyal but terrified minister who helps the king and secretly arranges the 100th tiger.
- British officer: Wants to hunt tigers; the king refuses and sends diamond rings to his wife to protect his throne.
Sequence of key events
- Birth of the prince; astrologers predict death by tiger; infant speaks and challenges them.
- At age 20, king learns the prophecy and begins tiger hunts.
- Kills first tiger; astrologer warns him about the 100th.
- Bans all tiger hunting except his own; faces British officer’s demand and bribes his wife.
- Kills 70 tigers in 10 years; tigers become extinct in his state.
- Marries a princess from a tiger-rich state and reaches 99 tigers.
- Searches desperately for the 100th; dewan secretly brings a tiger from Madras.
- King shoots, misses; hunters kill the tiger secretly.
- On son’s birthday, buys wooden tiger; splinter causes fatal infection.
- Surgeons announce the operation was “successful” but the Maharaja is dead.
Themes and messages
The writer shows the arrogance of those in power who believe they can control fate. The king’s vow and final death by a wooden tiger illustrate that destiny cannot be escaped. Reference: “In this manner the hundredth tiger took its final revenge upon the Tiger King.”
Literary devices
- Irony: “The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead.”
- Satire: The king’s full title and his vow to kill tigers in “self-defence.”
- Personification: The tiger “launched its satyagraha and refused to get out of the car.”
- Imagery: “tiny slivers of wood stood up like quills all over it.”
- Dramatic irony: Readers know the wooden tiger will cause death while the king celebrates killing the 100th tiger.
Vocabulary
- Indomitable: impossible to subdue or defeat
- Demise: death
- Astrologer: person who predicts future by stars
- Proclamation: official public announcement
- Suppurating: forming pus; festering
- Elation: great happiness
- Harakiri: ritual suicide (used metaphorically)
- Duraisani: British lady (wife of the officer)
- Tuft: small knot of hair on the head
Exam pitfalls
- Confusing the 100th tiger (the wooden one) with the real tiger the king shoots.
- Forgetting the king actually misses the real 100th tiger and that hunters kill it secretly.
- Writing that the prophecy is disproved instead of fulfilled through the wooden tiger.
- Mixing up the bribe amount (three lakh rupees) or the number of tigers killed (99 before the wooden tiger).