This exam takes 90 minutes. You and two of your classmates need to schedule a time with Jan Bardsley for your exam.  You are encouraged to prepare notes to bring to the exam.  Preparing these notes will help you organize your information and ideas for the exam.  It's also a good idea to meet with your group in advance to discuss these questions and possible answers.  You need to have a good idea of what you want to say as the exam moves quickly.  I promise it will be a lively exam, too. We'll all learn more in the process of these discussions.

Excellent answers show that you know the texts, that you can synthesize what you have learned, express yourself clearly, and that you can think imaginatively.

Exam Questions:
       Refer to specific scenes and passages in launching your discussion. The questions below are starting points.  We may go on to talk about other characters, themes or ideas in any of the Tanizaki books we read.

• Choose any passage from In Praise of Shadows to discuss how Tanizaki imagines Japan and the East. [Optional follow-up question:  How does Tanizaki's Japan compare with the Japan of The Last Samurai?]

• Old men figure in Some Prefer Nettles and Diary of a Mad, Old Man.  Both characters have an affinity for younger women.  Compare these men in terms of their attitudes toward their aging bodies, their position in their families, and their predilection for a certain type of woman.

• If we use The Makioka Sisters as our guide to marriage and the family in modern Japan, what do we learn about these institutions and the tensions surrounding them?

• Discussing The Key, Ken K. Ito writes:  "In [The Key] desire is synonymous with the urge to posses, to control. to manipulate.  Pleasure does not exist apart from mastery over another human being."  Choose any work we have read this semester and discuss how it compares or contrasts to The Key in terms of this theme.