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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. Topographically, where is the town in which May Kasahara is working in Chapter 5?

2. Where do Kumiko and Toru Okada meet for their first date?

3. What dangerous animal survives the massacre in Chapter 9?

4. How does May Kasahara describe her love life in Chapter 5?

5. What tune is the waiter whistling in Toru's Chapter 8 dream?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does pain return to Creta Kano's life?

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

3. How does May Kasahara describe her situation in Chapter 5?

4. What strange event happens involving a bar folk singer in Chapter 7?

5. What story about a house in Koru Okada's neighborhood does his uncle tell in Chapter 10?

6. What information does Malt Kano provide Toru Okada in their first meeting in Chapter 3?

7. In the story of Chapter 13, why does the Russian commander choose not to kill Lieutenant Mamiya?

8. Why does Creta Kano become a prostitute?

9. Why does Toru Okada choose to go into the well behind the old Miyawaki house?

10. Why is Lieutenant Mamiya uncomfortable with his mission with Yanamoto?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the central protagonist is Toru Okada, but the character of May Kasahara provides a tertiary plot-line that mirrors Toru's. Write an essay about May Kasahara's story. What adversity does she face, and how did this come about? Thematically, how is her story similar to Toru Okada's? What is the nature of her alienation, and how does she overcome it? Conclude the essay by explaining how May's story ends similarly to Toru's.

Essay Topic 2

Lieutenant Mamiya has perhaps the most extended personal narrative of the novel after Toru Okada. By the end of the novel, we know exactly what happened to Mamiya, in detail during the war. Write an essay, beginning with an overview of the travails this man faced in China, Mongolia, and Eastern Russia. ow did he survive, and what malicious figure continued to cross paths with him? What experience did Mamiya have in the war that was similar to Toru's? In conclusion, how is Mamiya's life a warning to Toru?

Essay Topic 3

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, beginning even with its title, is a novel that draws mystically from the animal world. Animals serve as harbingers and, to some extent, good-will ambassadors. Write an essay on the roles of three animals in the book. How is each animal introduced? What is its purpose, and how does this purpose become clear by the end of the novel? Does the appearance of this animal have positive or negative connotations?

Part 1) The ducks by May Kasahara's factory

Part 2) Toru's cat

Part 3) The Wind-Up Bird

(see the answer keys)

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