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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. How old was Yukio when he accepted the wholesaler's offer?

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

3. What order is Kyoko waiting for at the beginning of the story?

4. How is Miki's expression when she pours the coffee different from Kazu's?

5. What is Kurata's attitude after he speaks with Asami and finally drinks the last of his coffee?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. What role did Kinuyo play in Kazu's recovery from her mother's death?

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

6. 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?

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

8. What kind gesture does Nagare make when he gives Kyoko her order, and how does Kyoko react?

9. Why does Kiyoshi feel partially responsible for his wife's death?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the repeated structure of the stories in Tales from the Café impact the collection's tone? What impact do predictability and familiarity have on the reader? How would the feeling the reader gets from these stories be different if each story had a very different, perhaps more challenging, structure? The repeated elements of structure are perhaps most noticeable in the passages where the customers are actually traveling through time and returning to the present. Why do you think this is--what clues to intended tone do you see in the language and details in these passages? Write an essay in which you analyze the impact of the stories' repeated structures on the tone 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 2

Now that you have read Kawaguchi's complete collection, what moves do you see him making as an author to convince the reader to accept time-travel within his narrative? Does he take a more magical or scientific approach, or is it a blend of both? How do the café's "rules" for time-travel fit into this? How do details like descriptions of the café itself, the coffee ceremony, and the time-travelers' perceptions during the experience support your interpretation? Write an essay in which you analyze Kawaguchi's approach to time-travel and evaluate its impact on the reader. 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 "Lovers," Kurata advises Asami about how to cope with the death of her unborn child. What is the advice he gives her? How does this advice relate to the book's thematic concerns with grief, regret, and finding happiness? How does it relate to the fleeting nature of human life? How does it relate to love and the system of mutual obligation between friends and family members? How does this advice end up traveling and impacting the lives of several other characters? Write an essay that shows how Kurata's advice distills many of the thematic concerns of the novel and why it is therefore appropriate that this advice goes on to positively impact the lives of many other people. 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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