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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. What kind of watch is Junior wearing?

2. What does the narrator tell the librarian to comfort her at the end of Chapter 18?

3. Where does the narrator fall asleep at the end of Chapter 14?

4. What does the Gatekeeper say about the stash of old clothes?

5. What topic of conversation makes the narrator uncomfortable in Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator's conversation with the Librarian about where he came from tell the reader about the nature of the Town?

2. Explain the significance of the paperclips in Chapter 21.

3. What does Junior tell the narrator to tell the System about their visit and the wound? Why?

4. What does the Colonel tell the narrator about the Woods and the Woodspeople in Chapter 14?

5. Give a brief description of the beasts introduced in Chapter 2.

6. What do you know about the Pool based on your readings in Chapter 12?

7. Explain why the Colonel brings up the Librarian in Chapter 16 and what he tells the narrator in regards to her?

8. What does the Librarian say she particularly remembers about her mother in Chapter 22? How does the narrator explain this memory?

9. Explain how the relationship between the narrator and the young woman develops in Chapter 5.

10. Describe the Colonel and his relationship to the narrator.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Using the death of the beasts, the death of shadows and the prospect of the Tokyo narrator's own death as examples, explain how Murakami presents the theme of mortality in the novel.

Essay Topic 2

Name some elements of the "archetypal journey" and explain how the "Hard-Boiled Wonderland" narrator's passage through the Tokyo underground was an archetypal journey.

Essay Topic 3

In Chapter 37, the narrator says he was born by the sea and liked to collect things washed on shore by the typhoon. He says his life has always been about "gathering up the junk, sorting through it, and then casting it off somewhere else. All for no purpose...". Explain how the narrator's current life is this way and draw parallels between this and the people in the Town.

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