Question: what role does the tax collector play in the village?
Answer: The tax-collector wields immense power in the town and causes fear among villagers.
Question: How does the setting advance the plot and establish conflict?
Answer: The geographic distance between the capital and the town emphasizes the oppression of a government that is out of touch with its people.
Question: What is established in the last paragraph of the short story that explains the townspeople’s attitude about the way the town runs?
Answer: The people of the town have come to expect—and even rely on—the refusal.
Question: What effect do the soldiers have on the town?
Answer: The presence of soldiers in the small town intimidates its inhabitants
Question: Which people in the town are not satisfied with the refusals?
Answer: Young people, who don’t fully understand the risk of opposing the capital, are upset about the refusal.
Question: the disconnect between the town and the capital is hsown when tha narrator says that the capital ___________ and none of the townspeople knew.
Answer: was detroyed and a new one was built
Question: the highest official in the town
Answer: the chief tax collector
Question: the narrator’s father was a ____________
Answer: blacksmith
Question: what was the delegation coming to the chief tax collector about?
Answer: to ask him for a government subsidy because the poorest quarter of the town had been burned to the ground