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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 is thinning the ranks of the British forces in Chapter 4?

2. How much money does Sharpe have in the bank in London?

3. What does Lassan's mother demand he do?

4. What does Jane want Sharpe to do at the beginning of the novel?

5. How does Sharpe act upon being told the charges?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Jane demand of Sharpe in the Prologue?

2. Who has set up the charges against Sharpe and Frederickson and what do the British authorities know?

3. What is Toulouse and who commands it?

4. What is Sharpe's and Frederickson's plan for leaving Bordeaux?

5. What does Sharpe and his friends do after the battle of Toulouse?

6. Where do Nairn's troops participate in the battle at Toulouse and why and where do they then move?

7. What does Soult do with Toulouse following the British assault?

8. What does Napoleon do when he is worried about failure and who does he use to help him?

9. What orders do Sharpe, Frederickson, and Harper receive?

10. What does Henri do with his sister, Lucille?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Most protagonists are a mixture of admirable traits and character flaws, and Richard Sharpe is no exception. Sharpe's legendary powers of military strategy are juxtaposed with his reputation as a womanizer and his hatred for his wife. 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 help 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 2

Cornwell is masterful in his description of battles and life in general in for a soldier during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1820s. Discuss one of the following:

1. Trace and analyze Cornwells'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 the novel 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 John Rossendale, Henri Lassan, Napoleon, and General Calvet. 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 do 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?

Essay Topic 3

The novel presents one pimp actively recruiting women as whores amidst rampant poverty and imminent mass starvation. Thrown into this mix are many disabled French veterans and various displaced persons. The end of the war has not brought an end to the humanitarian crisis.

1. Compare the situation with the ravages of war in Bordeaux to a modern day refugee camp. How are they similar? How are they different?

2. In view of the aftermath of war, discuss the various groups of people in a country who are affected by war and its aftermath besides the members of the military.

3. Given the fact that war usually has no redeeming value and that all the people in a country are affected by war, not just the members of the military, discuss what you believe are the reasons the average person still responds when the government calls for war.

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