The Significance of the Title

The title, 'The Tiger King', is richly ironic and sums up the whole story in three words. On the surface it is a grand, admiring name for the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram, who becomes famous as the king who hunts and kills tigers. He earns the title by his vow to slay a hundred tigers and by reserving the killing of them for himself alone; tigers are the measure of his greatness and the proof, he believes, of his power over fate. In this sense he truly is a king of tigers, a ruler defined by them.