The story “The Tiger King” is a supreme example of dramatic irony.Dramatic irony refers to a situation where the complete significance of a character’s words or actions  is transparent to the audience but is not known to the character.  

The character acts in a way grossly inappropriate to the actual circumstances or expects the opposite of what fate holds in store for him. Kalki has used a very dexterous use of dramatic irony in the story. After killing the first tiger the King flaunts its dead body before the astrologer to show that he is more powerful than the tiger. However, the astrologer warns the king that he should be “careful with the hundredth tiger”. The king chooses to prove the astrologer wrong once again and makes frantic efforts to kill hundred tigers. Thus, having shot at the old tiger, the Tiger king believes he has killed the hundredth tiger. But the reader as well as the king’s officers and minions soon come to know that the emaciated tiger does not get killed but only has fainted. The king gets happy of killing the tiger but in actual ignorance of this ironical fate the prediction proves to be right and mere sliver on wooden tiger’s body causes his dramatic death. Quite ironically the hundredth tiger kills the king instead and astrologer’s predictions stand vindicated.