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. In the opening of "Husband and Wife," what shape is Nagare folding napkins into?

2. What causes Kiyoshi to reveal his identity to Kimiko?

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

4. When Yukio arrives in the past, what is Nagare doing?

5. What wish does Miki write on the tanzaku paper at the beginning of the story?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. Immediately after losing all of his money, what is the only solution to his problems that Yukio can think of, and what prevents him from choosing this solution?

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

6. How do Yukio's actions and emotions during the scene where he first sits down in the time-travel chair foreshadow his plan to not return to the present?

7. Why did Kiyoshi start to doubt whether he was suited to being a homicide detective?

8. What is similar about Asami's decision to meet Kurata and the advice Kurata gave her after her miscarriage?

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

10. How does Yaeko Hirai's story inspire Kiyoshi to make a change in the way he has been living his life?

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

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

In a text that focuses on the hopes and desires of different characters who come and go over the course of several separate stories, what is important about having Kazu's situation also reflect key thematic motifs? Which of the thematic motifs in Tales from the Café does Kazu's life story amplify? How does Kawaguchi encourage the reader to care about Kazu and whether she finds happiness? Write an essay that discusses the importance of Kazu as a consistent central figure in Tales from the Café and analyzes the techniques that Kawaguchi uses to make Kazu's happiness significant to the reader. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text, and be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,375 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample