The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Explore the use of pictorial writing and images in the text.

• How does the author use Chinese language characters to give further depth to some of the stories? (topic sentence)
• Examine the relationship the people in the stories have to written language. How does the written word connect them to their past? Why is it important to keep this writing alive? Using specific examples from at least two stories, explain how the stories may have felt different if the characters had not been displayed on the page.
• In your concluding sentences, summarize how the inclusion of Chinese characters supports the themes of The Essence of Memory and Erasure of the Past and/or Storytelling as a Universal Constant.

2. Explore the collection’s bridging and transcendence of genre.

• How does the author use tropes and genre convention in new ways? (topic sentence)
• Compare the genres used across the collection, including fantasy, steampunk, crime thriller, science fiction, speculative fiction, historical realism, and more. How do stories within different genres share common themes? How does the reader’s preconception of genre inform these core ideas?
• In your concluding sentences, identify and explain the unifying thread between all 15 stories.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Explore Liu’s use of magic and mythology within his stories. How does the author use magical elements to draw attention to real challenges? Consider the use of Chinese mythology in stories including, but not limited to, “Good Hunting,” “All the Flavors,” and “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King.” In what ways do the fantastical elements of these stories support the deeper themes? For example, what does magical transformation suggest about mental and spiritual transformation?

2. Several of Liu’s stories explore potential technological advances, including heightened AI, space travel, and immortality. Explore the ways in which the groundwork for these advances is already being laid in the real world, and consider the author’s perspective on humanity’s current path. Do you agree with his analysis? Why or why not?

3. Examine the story “State Change.” What do the souls—ice, cigarettes, candles, coffee, and so forth—reveal about the characters? Which of the souls presented in the story resonate most with you? What form would your own soul take, and why?