The Maharaja (the Tiger King)

The Maharaja of Pratibandapuram, the Tiger King, is the central figure and the target of the story's satire. He is vain, arrogant and utterly autocratic, ruling his state as if it existed only to serve his personal ambitions. His whole life is organised around a single obsession: proving wrong the prophecy that a tiger will kill him. To this end he vows to kill a hundred tigers, bans everyone else from hunting them, and treats the animals of his kingdom as his private property. He is reckless with his state's wealth, spending a fortune on diamond rings and gifts merely to keep a British officer happy and to protect his throne. He is also easily flattered and self-deceiving: he happily believes he has killed the hundredth tiger himself, never learning that his shot missed and a hunter finished the beast. Beneath his grand titles he is essentially childish, cruel and foolish, and his death by a wooden toy tiger is …