View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Kurata react when he learns of Fumiko's marriage?

2. What is Fumiko's job?

3. What is Miki's attitude toward being asked to pour the coffee?

4. Who is the source of most of Kiyoshi's information about the people who have traveled back in time in the café?

5. What does Asami show Kurata soon after meeting him in the café?

Short Essay Questions

1. What comparison does Yukio make between his own situation and that of a character in Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird?

2. What are the conditions that Kurata gives Fumiko for either bringing or not bringing Asami to the café?

3. What happened when Kimiko tried to intervene in the mugging incident?

4. After Asami suffered a miscarriage, what advice did Kurata give her?

5. What does Kinuyo explain to Yukio about the silver stirrer, and what does he realize this means Kinuyo knows?

6. What is Fumiko's relationship to the café?

7. What similarity does Kiyoshi see between his and Kazu's situations?

8. How did Kinuyo prove her devotion to her son over and over during his childhood?

9. When Kimiko enters the café, whom does Kiyoshi pretend to be, and why?

10. What is Kurata wearing in the story's opening, and why does it make him seem out of place?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Now that you have read several Kawaguchi stories, you will have noticed a structural pattern. How does he begin each story? What kinds of exposition does he interrupt the narrative flow with, and at what points does he generally interrupt? How--and when--does he use flashback, and what is distinctive about his style of flashback? Write an essay in which you consider how Kawaguchi generally structures his stories and what connection this structure has to the themes he is developing in these narratives. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text, and be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

In Tales from the Café, the cherry blossoms and bell cricket function as symbols of spring and fall. In a later story, a Christmas tree and Christmas cake indicate that winter has come. On the surface, the Christmas tree and cake seem very different from the other two seasonal symbols--they are predominantly associated with Western culture and Christianity, and are associated with a specific holiday rather than with the natural change of seasons. Do some research into the role of Christmas in Japanese culture and then write an essay that demonstrates why these symbols have more in common than it first appears. Show how Christmas symbolism, because of its particular history in Japan, is appropriate in a collection that uses seasonal symbols to stress the cyclical nature of hope and despair. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text, and be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Do some more research into the uses of ghosts in Japanese literature. Now that you are aware of the identity of the ghost in Tales from the Café, what points about family relationships and mutual obligations would you say are being made through her appearance--and through her eventual disappearance? What do these ideas convey about the nature of happiness? Use your research and evidence from the collection to write an essay in which you analyze the thematic significance of Kaname's ghost in Tales from the Café. Be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,126 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample