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. What is implied when the narrator says that, upon hearing of his mother's death, Yukio "heard a tautly stretched string snapping inside his head" (66)?

2. What significant event on the previous day is part of the reason for the timing of Yukio's visit to the café?

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

4. Whom does Yukio call when he goes outside?

5. Which rule does Miki forget to review with Kiyoshi that he later nearly breaks?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. When Yukio is discouraged about his future, what keeps him working toward becoming a potter?

3. For Yukio, what is especially cruel about the timing of Kinuyo's death?

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

5. Why does Kimiko have such a strong emotional reaction to the gift from Kiyoshi?

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

7. How did Yukio lose all of his money?

8. What news about Yukio does the reader learn in "Lovers"?

9. What complication almost prevents Kiyoshi from traveling back in time, and how does Nagare solve the problem?

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

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

How does the text's advice about dealing with regret differ from its advice about dealing with grief? What similarities are there between these two emotions, and what is the key difference between them that leads to the text advocating different ways of dealing with them? Write an essay in which you explore the text's position on the sources and impact of these two emotions as well as its differing advice for dealing with them. Use the examples of the time-travelers in the collection to support your assertions. Be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Now that you are aware of how difficult it is to translate Japanese literature into English, consider which specific passages of Tales from the Café might have proven especially difficult for Trousselot to translate. For instance, when Kyoko is introduced on page 7, Trousselot writes, "Obviously caring little for formalities with strangers, she spoke to Gohtaro casually, as if he was a familiar face." Do you imagine that this sentence was necessary in the original, Japanese, text? How did Kawaguchi probably indicate this aspect of Kyoko's character? Even with this explicit explanation, does the English text really convey the impact that Kyoko's unexpected and unconventional language probably conveyed in the original? Also, consider the many subtle, elliptical conversations between Nagare and Kazu: what might be missing from the English translation that the original Japanese could easily convey? Write an essay that considers these and other aspects of translation 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.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,301 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample