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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. Why is Kiyoshi initially unsure whether he will be welcomed into the café?

2. Which is the best description of how Yukio feels when he returns to the present?

3. Where did Kurata meet Asami Mori?

4. When Asami addresses Kurata "brusquely," what does this indicate her tone is (97)?

5. When Yukio apologizes to his mother and asks for her forgiveness, what is he responding to?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How did Yukio's perception of his own circumstances change over the years of his apprenticeship?

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. What lies does Yukio tell his mother about taking care of himself, and why does he tell these lies?

10. When Miki writes her wish that Nagare would become happy, how does Nagare react?

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

The motif of parental stand-ins begins in the story "Best Friends" with Gohtaro's adoption of his friend's orphaned child and with the parallel scenes between Miki and the younger version of Kazu. Later in the text, the reader learns about the relationship that developed between Kinuyo and Kazu after Kaname's death. What is Tales from the Café saying about stand-in and adoptive parents? Consider all three of these relationships--Gohtaro's with Haruka, Kazu's with Miki, and Kinuyo's with Kazu--as you write an essay analyzing the text's messages about parental relationships not through blood, but through choice. 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 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.

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