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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. When does Kazu tell Miki she will be old enough to pour the coffee?

2. What is Kazu's relationship to Miki's father?

3. Why does Nagare ask Gohtaro if something is wrong with his coffee?

4. Where is the time-traveling café located?

5. What did Gohtaro and his friend notice about the young man who ran the cash register at the café?

Short Essay Questions

1. Which characteristics of Shuichi's give Gohtaro "grounds for faith" that Shuichi will quickly understand that Gohtaro has traveled back in time (31)?

2. When Gohtaro wakes up just after eight o'clock, what does Miki try to do, and how do her father and Kazu react?

3. Why does the narrator use vague language to describe the tears falling during the encounter between Shuichi and Gohtaro?

4. Why does Kazu sound stern when she tells Gohtaro, "You know that even if your return to the past, reality won't change, right?" (13)?

5. When Gohtaro first sees Shuichi in the past, why does the gesture of putting his hand around his coffee cup cause Gohtaro to suddenly panic about his own ability to communicate?

6. How does the subject of Kyoko's son Yohsuke come up in conversation?

7. How does the exchange between Kyoko and Kazu about Kazu's boyfriend characterize both women?

8. What warning does Kazu give Gohtaro about remembering to drink his coffee?

9. What item does Kazu offer the ghost, and how do her emotions change during this encounter?

10. What are the rules of the time-traveling café?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The café's major rules for time travel are first explained in "Best Friends." Later in Tales from the Café, though, the reader learns a few more rules--among these, that travelers are able to leave objects behind in the past. Given that this rule is not introduced until later, in "Mother and Son," do you think that it is only introduced because it is necessary to Yukio's story? What does this rule imply about the nature of time? Is this implication consistent with other ideas about time in this story? Write an essay in which you consider whether the rule about the giving and receiving of presents while time traveling is consistent with the rest of the stories in the collection or whether it is just a convenience to explain why Yukio is able to give his mother the passbook. Support your argument with evidence drawn from throughout the text, and be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

What does Tales from the Café convey about the fleeting nature of human life? Because life lasts a finite and unpredictable amount of time, what does this text advise people do to maximize their happiness? What are some issues from the past that might encroach on a person's present happiness? How does the text advise people to deal with these issues? Write an essay in which you take and defend a position on the theme of Tales from the Café. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text, and be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Read Fritz Leiber's short story "Try and Change the Past" (available online). Consider the messages it sends about the relationship between past and present. How are these messages similar to and different from those in Tales from the Café? How are the "rules" of time travel constituted in each narrative? What motivates people to travel to the past? How do their travels impact their present reality, if at all? Write an essay comparing and contrasting messages about the relationship of past and present in Leiber's story and Kawaguchi's story collection. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout both texts, and be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

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