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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does Matsuda claim has been blamed for Japan's downfall?

2. What does Setsuko say in Kawabe Park that irritates Ono?

3. Why doesn't Miss Suzuki want Matsuda to feed his fish?

4. What news does Ono give Matsuda about himself?

5. Why does Ono introduce Kenji into the conversation in Noriko's kitchen?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Ono irritated at Setsuko's insistence that Saito never heard of Ono until the miai?

2. Why does Matsuda say he never married?

3. What happened to Moriyama's best student, Sasaki?

4. How does Ono explain Naguchi's suicide to Ichiro?

5. How has Ichiro changed in the year since Ono last saw him?

6. Why didn't Moriyama applaud his student's maturing talent as an artist?

7. What does Ono say the New Japan proved about him and about Matsuda?

8. What does Matsuda say about his own perspective now that he is old and ill?

9. What does Matsuda believe was his and Ono's great misfortune?

10. The reader learns some news about Noriko at the same time Matsuda does. What is the news?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What do you make of the fact that Ono's paintings are not on display even in his own home, and that he will not show them even to his own grandson? What does it tell you that Ono will not draw or paint with Ichiro, although he encourages the boy to draw? What does it tell you that at the end of the story he tells Matsuda that he is painting again? Analyze what Ono's art work means to him in the context of these facts.

Essay Topic 2

First, Shintaro calls Ono a traitor. Second, we learn about the artwork that has made him call his friend a traitor. Third, we learn of Matsuda's persuasive conversation that induced Ono to change his painting style, and fourth, we learn that the work resulted in his expulsion from Moriyama's tutelage. Analyze the way the clarity of the story is affected by this type of organization. Why do you think Ishiguro chose not to tell is story in simple chronological order? What effect does dealing with time in this way have on you as a reader?

Essay Topic 3

Naguchi is a character we never meet directly. Ono explains the musician's suicide to his grandson, Ichiro. There are some differences between this conversation and the opinions Ono expresses when Miyake tells Ono that his employer committed suicide and that Miyake finds the action admirable. Has Ono changed? If so, what has changed him?

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