1.  What  makes Tomoko hopelessly attracted to men?

2.  What is her relationship with Akita like?  How does Tomoko see herself in this relationship?

3.  What keeps Miki in his relationship with Tomoko?

5.  The author devotes much of the story line to the development of Tomoko's "glorious" glistening, rounded body and Miki's increasingly thin, tubercular one.  What do these changing body shapes symbolize?

6.  Why does Miki feed Tomoko only Western foods?
 

1.  Keiko, the main character, is the flower arranging teacher of an experimental style.  Part of our information about her personality comes from how she distinguishes herself from her niece and student, Senko.  How would you describe their relationship?
 

2.  Modern women's writing was often associated with sexuality. Keiko has been living a chaste life for 16 years, has some twinges of regret about not having children, and immerses herself in color, shape and "female softness."  Do flowers represent her passion or substitute for it?   In answering this question, consider her long description of flowers on pps. 216-217.

3.  What kind of artist is Keiko's male friend Kobuse?  How does his style of painting and her personality differ from Keiko's artistic ambitions?
 

4.  How do you read the final flower arrangements that close this story? 
 

5.  What does the final line of the story say about Keiko, as a woman and an artist?

1.  What are the narrator's first experiences with reading?  What makes it so attractive to her? 

2.  Why does this character take up writing and how does she imagine herself as a writer?

3.  What's love got to do with it?

4.  The narrator has several different and varied jobs.  What is her attitude toward work and earning her own money?

5.  The narrator chooses models and decides to write "like" them. The title of the story is even "A Genius of Imitation."  What is Uno Chiyo saying about imitation in this story?

6.  How does the narrator compare her writing to being a "good wife?"