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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. Why does Kiyoshi feel unsure about what to get his wife for her birthday?

2. Where is the time-traveling café located?

3. What did Kinuyo give her son when he left for Kyoto?

4. What conclusion does Shuichi draw from the way Gohtaro handles the camera?

5. What is Kyoko's younger brother's name?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Gohtaro tells Shuichi, "Haruka has decided to get married," how does the narrator explain Shuichi's reaction, and what does the reader later learn is the real reason for his reaction?

2. What causes the narrator to suggest that Kyoko might be thinking, "Saved by Miki" when Kyoko suddenly bursts out laughing on page 53?

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

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

5. How did Shuichi's and Gohtaro's lives take different paths after college?

6. How did Gohtaro end up raising Shuichi's daughter?

7. What rule of time traveling in the café does Gohtaro almost immediately break when he returns to the past, and who saves him from this error?

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

9. 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)?

10. When Shuichi tells Haruka in his message, "If it is for you, I can do anything," what does this foreshadow (36)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

One of the reasons the customers traveling through time seek to comfort others and do what is right by them is to reduce their own pain and discomfort. On the surface, this appears to be a selfish motive. But can an argument be made that their pain and discomfort actually arises because of a deep sense of love and obligation to others? In other words, the desire to reduce their own suffering might be self-focused, but is the suffering itself generated by something selfless? Write an essay in which you consider two of the stories in this collection and the degree to which the suffering of the time-traveling characters in these stories is created by their love for and/or sense of obligation to others. You may conclude that both characters are in similar situations or that the characters' situations are different. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout both stories, and be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

What figurative meaning is there in the text's advice to drink the coffee before it gets cold? How is this figurative meaning supported by the descriptive passages about the origins, taste, preparation, and serving of the coffee? What does it mean that the people drinking it are customers in a timeless and somewhat magical café, not just people drinking coffee that they made in their own homes? What other details and language in the text support the idea that the coffee is symbolic? Write an essay that analyzes the symbolic significance of coffee in 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.

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