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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 Wellington need in order to win the war?

2. Why is the open plain a bad place for the British to be?

3. Where do Sharpe and Loup meet to fight?

4. What is Sharpe using to look at the French troops?

5. What does Hogan tell Sharpe about Sharpe's change in status?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who do Sharpe and Harper join in the first battle for the village and what happens to that person?

2. What is Wellington doing when he realizes he has made a mistake, and what is that mistake?

3. Why do the French call a temporary truce and what do two French and British officers do during the truce?

4. What does Hogan say to Sharpe about letting Juanita go free?

5. How are the southern British troops threatened and what do they do about it?

6. What is Kiely's reaction to Juanita being caught by Sharpe?

7. What do Hogan and Wellington decide about Sharpe and the battle at Isidoro?

8. What does Hogan say to Sarsfield?

9. How does Sharpe, Runciman, and the Real Compañía Irlandesa get involved in the battle for Fuentes de Onoro?

10. How does Massena react to the southern troops joining the northern ones and what does Wellington do after the army is reunited?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

Richard Sharpe is in some ways a larger-than-life hero. Despite incredible odds, he usually comes out on top, in Sharpe's Battle and in the others in the series. Discuss the following:

1. Does having a larger-than-life hero make that person less of a hero? In other words, which is more admirable--a hero who ultimately always "lands on his feet," or one who strives against impossible odds and doesn't always succeed?

2. Does a character have to be successful in order to be a hero? Explain your answer.

3. Choose one other character besides Sharpe who you might call a hero/heroine and explain why you choose that person. Illustrate your statements with examples from the text.

4. Does every work of fiction have to have a hero? Explain your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Cornwell is masterful in his description of battles and life in general in for a soldier during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s. Discuss one of the following:

1. Trace and analyze Cornwell's descriptive passages about life as a soldier. How does he use descriptions of the five senses to make the reader feel s/he is there? Do you find his descriptions compelling? Seemingly accurate? How would Sharpe's Battle be different if Cornwell did not include such descriptive passages?

2. Analyze Cornwells's descriptive passages about the social structure of the times and discuss what you think it would be like to be a person of wealth and/or privilege such as Wellington, or Dunnet. Contrast that to the lives of those who are in a lower social strata such as Sharpe and Harper or one in service to someone of wealth and/or privilege.

3. Describe and analyze Cornwell's descriptive passages about the topographical setting and the physical descriptions of the people. Does Cornwell do an adequate job of actually making the reader "see" the land/sea where the action is taking place? How about getting a visual image of the characters? How does the descriptions of the setting add to the novel? Do you like having an idea of how a character looks? How would the novel be different without such descriptions?

(see the answer keys)

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