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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 Sharpe insist on with Farthingdale?

2. What does Farthingdale decide to do at the war council?

3. What does Sharpe tell Farthingdale about Lady Farthingdale?

4. Who was Sharpe's mother?

5. Who is spotted in the distance after the castle is secured?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the first actions Sharpe takes after the war council?

2. What happens when Farthingdale comes outside and what interests him about the French?

3. Who is spotted in the village that surprises Sharpe?

4. What does Sharpe arrange the day after the war council?

5. How does Sharpe react to Farthingdale's announcement and what does he do about it?

6. Why doesn't the French take the castle?

7. Who does Shapre meet from the French forces and how does that meeting go? How do the French feel about the British?

8. What happens to the first two French attacks?

9. What happens at the convent after the British abandon it?

10. How many forces does Sharpe estimate are arrayed between the French and the British soldiers?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sharpe demands a duel from Ducos but Ducos says no. In other books in this series, Sharpe has fought duels. Discuss the following:

1. What is a duel? How is it conducted? Why is it conducted? When did the use of duels to settle matters of honor go out of use in England? The United States?

2. What other methods do you think could be used to settle a matter of honor or insult to one's reputation?

3. In England, dueling becomes illegal in the 19th century, yet men still engaged in them and the winner often has to flee to escape punishment. Do you think dueling should have been made illegal? Why or why not?

4. Research dueling in Britain and discuss the typical reasons two men would engage in a duel. Do the reasons seem worth the potential costs?

5. If dueling were still legal, can you imagine engaging in one? Why or why not.

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 Enemy 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

The evidence of murder, torture, and mass rape is throughout the convent. Sharpe watches a woman being tortured by being branded on her breasts with a red-hot iron. The Elsewhere women are systematically tortured in sexually stylistic ways.

1. Present and analyze the treatment of women in Sharpe's Enemy.

2. Cornwell is trying to be historically accurate, so is his treatment of women in his book(s) justified? Why or why not?

3. Is there any way Cornwell could have presented women in a more positive light and still stayed historically accurate? Explain.

(see the answer keys)

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