View a FREE sample

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 and his men scavenge from the fort?

2. What does de Maquerre do when he sees Sharpe?

3. With what does Calvet hit the fortress after the bombardment?

4. What does Calvet worry about at the fortress?

5. Who joins Sharpe near the river?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Calvet do with his artillery?

2. Describe the bridge that the British built.

3. What do both Calvet and Sharpe realize about the assaults on the fortress and how it will end.

4. What does colonel Favier ask Sharpe and what is his reply?

5. What does Bampfylde do before leaving Teste de Buch?

6. What do Sharpe and Frederickson think about their situation and what troubles Sharpe?

7. Describe General Calvet and what type of military leader is he?

8. What type of tactic has Sharpe used to get his men out of the fort? Describe how it worked.

9. What occurs during the exchange between Calvet and Killick?

10. Describe Pierre Ducos and describe his unusual status.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose two of the following and compare and contrast the two people. Include in the discussion their type of leadership, their personality, their morals and whether you would like to serve under them.

1. Sharpe and Bampfylde.

2. Lassan and Fredrickson.

3. Killick and the Comte de Maquerre.

Essay Topic 2

Most protagonists are a mixture of admirable traits and character flaws, and Richard Sharpe is no exception. Sharpes legendary powers of military strategy is juxtaposed with his reputation as a womanizer and his somewhat superstitious nature as demonstrated by his worry for his wife's health. 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

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 Captain William Bampfyldem, Comte de Maquerre, General Calvet, and Commandant Henri Lassan. 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)

This section contains 1,068 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample