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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. Where does Toru's Chapter 8 dream take place?

2. Why is Kumiko uncomfortable the first time she has sex with Toru?

3. Who pulls the rope ladder up from the well in Chapter 9?

4. In Chapter 16, Toru and the man with the guitar case fight with what weapon?

5. How does Toru Okada rationalize his wife's curtness to him in Chapter 2?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Kumiko explain her own disappearance in her letter of Chapter 11?

2. Describe Toru Okada's dream at the end of Chapter 16?

3. What painful admission does May Kasahara make in Chapter 15?

4. Describe Toru Okada's life at the beginning of the novel.

5. What is the Clumsy Massacre of Chapter 9?

6. Why does Creta Kano become a prostitute?

7. Why are the Okadas estranged from the Watayas?

8. What does Toru Okada discover while shaving in Chapter 12?

9. Describe the interchange Toru has with the woman on the bench in Chapter 2?

10. What financial decision does Toru Okada make at the beginning of Book 3?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Regularly throughout the novel, characters discover something deeply spiritual about themselves, brought about by their close proximity to death. Write an essay about three of these instances and their meaning in the novel:

Part 1) Describe the harrowing experience Lieutenant Mamiya experiences in Mongolia. How is he affected by his day in the dry well before being rescued? What changed in his outlook of the world?

Part 2) At what point does Creta Kano, after years of constant and unremitting pain, achieve some type of relief? What does this transition have to do with a proximity to death? How is this change connected to her eventual, more ethereal profession?

Part 3) When does Toru Okada develop the blue-black mark on his face? What traumatic and somewhat dangerous occurrence does this follow? What new and spiritual powers does this mark seem to imbue Toru with?

Essay Topic 2

Haruki Murakami's novels almost always involve grown men who have not fully developed emotionally and several strong-willed women who force them to question their world-views. Write an essay about Toru Okada's relationship with the women of the novel. How is Toru's emotional growth stunted at the beginning of the novel? What shattering event forces him from his torpor at the beginning of the novel? Choose three women who enter his life after this event and discuss their relationship to him.

Essay Topic 3

Perhaps the most central theme of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is the interconnectedness of humanity and the impossibility of escaping said interconnectedness. Write an essay about several characters' attempts to distance themselves from humanity and how they are pulled back:

Part 1) Why does Kumiko try to alienate herself from her family? How does she go about doing this, and how is she pulled back into the Wataya sphere? To what extent is Kumiko destroyed emotionally and existentially by her return to her family?

Part 2) Why does May Kasahara choose to leave Tokyo, and where does she go? Is this flight indicative of a desire to be separated from the society at large? Who is the only person with whom she maintains communication? How does she rediscover her interconnectedness with society?

Part 3) How is Toru Okada the definition of social alienation at the beginning of the novel? Who does he have in his life, and what does he do with his days? Write out the steps by which he leaves his house and accepts other into his life.

(see the answer keys)

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