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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. What does Loup swear to Sharpe?

2. What happened to the gatehouse where the Real Compañía Irlandesa officers were billeted?

3. When does Ducos point out Guy Loup to Juanita de Elia?

4. Why will de Elia be meeting Loup?

5. What will Juanita's undercover disguise be?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Sharpe asks El Castrador about the village where Loup is and who goes there with Sharpe?

2. Why is Sharpe frustrated at the beginning of the book, what does Harper do about it and how does Sharpe respond to Harper?

3. What is Sharpe ordered to do with the Real and why?

4. Describe the battle at the barracks when Loup's troops attack.

5. How does Juanita arrive at San Isidoro and what is the response of some of the men?

6. How does Sharpe find out what happened to the Portuguese ammunition wagons?

7. What does Sharpe ask Runciman to do and why has he asked him instead of the British command?

8. What information about the Royal Guard is Hogan and Wellington not aware?

9. How does the Portuguese battalion arrive, with whom does Sharpe meet, what kind of man is he and why is the battalion there?

10. What does Hogan tell Sharpe about Runciman and Loup's attack and what is Sharpe's response? What does Hogan tell him about it being Sharpe's fault?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sharpe, despite his background, is an officer and a gentleman and is therefore accorded more respect and trust even in enemy territory than the common soldier. Discuss the following:

1. Does it seem likely that officers are usually more respectable than enlisted men back then? What about today? Why or why not.

2. Sharpe executes two prisoners of war without a trial. Do you think this is how an officer and gentleman comports himself? Why or why not.

3. In the present military in the United States, both officers and enlisted can be held for court martial for doing a number of things that Sharpe has done. Why do you think this is so? Do you agree with the policy?

Essay Topic 2

Most protagonists are a mixture of admirable traits and character flaws, and Richard Sharpe is no exception. Sharpe's legendary powers of military strategy is juxtaposed with his reputation as a womanzier. Discuss the following:

1. Trace and analyze situations when Sharpe demonstrates his prodigious powers of military strategy. Give specific examples to illustrate your analysis.

2. Trace and analyze Sharpe's character flaws offering specific examples of these flaws in your discussion.

3. Discuss how you think Sharpe's admirable traits helped him obtain a high rank in the military despite his background as a child. Have his flaws impacted his career at all? Do any of those under his command seem to notice these flaws? Who? How does the reader know this?

Essay Topic 3

Most of the French are gone when Sharpe and his men arrive at a small settlement, except for two men who are raping a young Spanish girl in one of the cottages. Sharpe and Harper enter the rest of the cottages and find a number of Spanish civilians have been slaughtered, some tortured and raped and many of them children. Sharpe gathers his men and prepares to execute the two Frenchmen who are left. Sharpe has the two prisoners put up against a wall and shot.

1. Discuss the differences between how a soldier who rapes and murders during war might behave in his own home. For example, do you think if a man who became a rapist and a murderer in war would have been a murderer and rapist had he never gone to war? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Do you think what Sharpe did with the two French prisoners was right or wrong? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. It is obvious from Sharpe's encounter with Loup that Loup encouraged or at least allowed his men to rape, torture and murder. Why do you think Sharpe did not kill Loup when he killed the two prisoners? Loup was under a flag of truce, but Sharpe had already broken the rules of war by executing the prisoners. Discuss the difference Sharpe may have seen between executing two prisoners and honoring a flag of truce. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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