Interpretation of literary

IV. Interpretation of the Title. The word "tribute" is mentioned 
in the story 6 times. The dictionary meaning o( the word "tribute" is: 
money or its equivalent paid by a government or a ruler to a stronger 
government as acknowledgement of submission, or as price of peace or 
protection, or by virtue of treaty. 
In the text of the story it is used in the meaning of large sums of 
interest paid by the government fr~ the money lent to the state in 
wartime and also in the meaning of financial voluntary contribution to 
the state. In the title of the story it combines the following connotations: 
1. The worker's duty to the country, their sacrifices on the altar of 
war, their hard work in war and peace time. 
2. The profits, capitalists get from the government thanks to wars. 
3. The capitalists' contributions to the state. 
The Russian translation of the title is "Vklad v obshcheye delo" V. 
Conceptual Information (the idea of the story), This satirical pamphlet is 
a passionate protest against the war, against the antidemocratic policy of 
the ruling class shitting all the burdens of war on the shoulders of the 
working people and making them pay their duty to the country by their 
lives, while the rich increased their wealth. 
Besides that the author raises the problem of social inequality, 
exposes the hypocritical "care
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of the factory-owners, exploiting the 
"dear" working class and stirs up doubts as to the stability of the 
capitalist system foundation. The mill-owner Olive considers the 
existing capitalist system as a permanent order of thing, as "God's 
scheme of creation: ''... you see—the Almighty—we are his agents—we 
must always remember that. It goes on for years, years upon years it 
goes on, It will go on of course, yes, for ever; ... the children mature and 

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keep the mill going". Coppard is emphasizing Olive's confidence in the 
permanence of the existing order of things with deep arid wrathful 
sarcasm. His aim is to prove the opposite. His underlying idea is that it is 
necessary to reverse the order of things, to put an end to the brutal 
exploitation of the workers and enrichment of the capitalists,