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 do the staff say about the agency director's homelife?

2. Who asks the Woman in the Purple Skirt to introduce herself to the staff on her first day?

3. What is one sign to the narrator that the Woman in the Purple Skirt is not working in the third chapter?

4. Who does the narrator decide the Woman in the Purple Skirt reminds her of at the start of the second chapter?

5. Why did the narrator throw away the stick of gum her classmate once gave her in junior high school?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do the children at the park interact with the Woman in the Purple Skirt at the park? How does she react to them?

2. In what ways does the Woman in the Purple Skirt remind the narrator of her sister? What is the narrator's relationship with her sister?

3. Who does the narrator follow at the start of the story? Where does she go each week? What does she buy? Where does she sit after?

4. In what way does the narrator feel she may have helped the Woman in the Purple Skirt win over the director and supervisor so quickly?

5. What does the narrator leave on the Woman's park bench to assist in her job hunt?

6. What surprises the narrator about the Woman in the Purple Skirt after they begin to work together?

7. What happens at the park after the Woman sits with her apple after her first day of work?

8. Why is the narrator not surprised when the Woman struggles to get hired?

9. How do the supervisors convince the Woman to steal an apple from work one day? What do they say when she wonders if Supervisor Gondo steals?

10. What changes does the narrator note about the Woman when she has a job versus when she does not?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay exploring the narrator's attempts to get close to the Woman in the Purple Skirt. What plans does she come up with and how are these plans continuously thwarted?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay comparing and contrasting the narrator and the Woman in the Purple Skirt. What details help develop their character and what do these details tell you about them? What is their background? How do they know each other? How do they interact? In what ways are they similar or different? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

Write a detailed analysis of tone in Imamura's The Woman in the Purple Skirt. Include whether the tone changes or remains the same. If it changes, include details on when, why and whether this change is effective.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 936 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample