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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 type of people did Mrs. Saeki write a book about?

2. Which of the following images is the subject of a painting hanging in Kafka's bedroom at the library?

3. What color is the entrance stone?

4. What classical musician is the topic of conversation at the coffee shop that Hoshino frequents?

5. What does Mrs. Saeki ask Nakata to do with the stack of papers she has written about her life?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Kafka react to the desolate village that the Japanese soldiers guide him to?

2. How does Hoshino care for Nakata after he dies?

3. How does Colonel Sanders explain his physical form to Hoshino?

4. What happens with Mrs. Saeki sleepwalks into Kafka's bedroom?

5. How does Mrs. Saeki respond when Nakata bursts into her office demanding to talk about the entrance stone?

6. How does evil try to escape Limbo?

7. What conversation does Hoshino get into with the elderly coffee shop owner the day that the entrance stone is flipped?

8. What happens when Crow encounters Johnny Walker in the enchanted woods?

9. Why does Oshima wake Kafka in the middle of the night with a frantic phone call?

10. What does Mrs. Saeki ask Nakata to do with her memoirs?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There are many talking animals in this novel. First, create a list of animal characters and explain their role within the novel. Then, discuss your reaction to the presence of talking animals in an adult novel. Was their integration into the storyline successful? Why or why not? How does their presence make this novel fit into the genre of magical realism?

Essay Topic 2

Throughout the text, Oshima is a wealth of literary knowledge. Choose at least two literary works that Oshima discusses, and explain what he teaches Kafka about each work. Then, explain what Oshima means when he says that "there is such a thing as metaphor in the corporeal world." How does this statement apply to the novel as a whole?

Essay Topic 3

When the entrance stone is turned, it draws together two wandering souls - Mrs. Saeki and Nakata. First, describe the lives Mrs. Saeki and Nakata had been living before the stone was turned. Then, explain how Mrs. Saeki and Nakata complete each other, and what the effects of their final meeting were.

(see the answer keys)

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