An impetuous street urchin with the slanted, yellowish eyes of a predator, a hardened peasant grandmother whose spirit remains unbroken by urban misery, a beautiful, insane Amazon with a horribly fascinating serpentine scar, an unemployed father turned sex-murderer, an animal trainer who loses control of his beasts at a critical moment, a doctor in charge of a ward in a mental institution, and the tiger -- these are central figures in a story that explores a variety of problems characteristic of modern existence: alienation, moral degeneration, mental and spiritual decay, the collapse of the family, the timeless conflicts between male and female, parent and child, nature and civilisation. The Bengal Tiger describes a small boy's search for love, acceptance, and security in a hostile environment.