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 is Sharpe asked to do?

2. What does Sharpe ask of Rossendale?

3. What does Rossendale do when he sees Sharpe coming his way?

4. How are the British heavy cavalry defeated?

5. Where do Sharpe and Harper go after the French skirmishers retreat?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does D'Alembord's premonition show courage?

2. How does the author fit in a depiction of the Allied Forces in Chapter 13?

3. How do Sharpe and other British officers react to the sight of Napoleon and what might be the intent of Napoleon in that regard?

4. What type of relationship does the contrast of the two opposing generals have to the two armies?

5. By the end of Chapter 10 what do each of the characters in the story face?

6. What explanations about British firing techniques are described in great detail in chapter 15?

7. What stops the French from pursuing the retreating British army?

8. What is the difference between the disposition of the Allied Forces and the French in Chapter 13? For what does this afford the author an opportunity?

9. In Chapter 10, what describes a critical decision made by Wellington that ultimately leads to an Allied victory?

10. Why, on the third day, are the French still confident of victory?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Cornwell is masterful in his description of battles and life in general 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, The Prince of Orange, The Duke of Wellington, and Simon Doggett. 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 2

Cornwell has tried as much as possible to use historical events and facts around which to weave his work of fiction. Discuss the following:

1. Do you think this book qualifies as an historical fiction? Why or why not?

2. If many of the events in the book are historical, what surprises you about the way the events play out?

3. Do you think the culture of that era is more or less advanced than you imagined? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

In Chapter 11, the macabre auction of the personal possessions of the dead officers is another example of the brutally simple disposition of the fallen soldiers' belongings and also their corpses. Only the most privileged soldiers and officers will have the benefit of loved ones and servants to seek them out from the vast field of dead and dying when the battle is over.

1. Do you think the treatment of dead soldiers and their possessions in this era meant that people had little value to society as a whole back then? Why or why not?

2. In terms of manpower does it seem to be short-sighted of the ruling class to pay so little attention to the wounded on the battle field? In other words, how many men may have died who could have survived to continue serving in the military? Why or why not would you consider the ruling class short-sighted in regards to wounded men?

3. Compare and discuss the difference in the way wounded are treated in war today as compared to that era.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,156 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample