Which question should be asked to determine the tone of a piece of writing?

The first question asked should definitely be whether the author sounds casual or formal, that helps determine many other aspects later on.

  the conflict is the challenge the main character need to solve to achieve their goals, is the major literary element because creates challenges in the story by addin uncertainty to if the goal would be achieved. in the story could be more than a single conflict, in fact, most of the stories have a diversity of them. the resolution creates a closure that may or may not be the end of the story.

  the basic types of conflict have been classified as "person againsta nature", "person against person" and "persona against self". nevertheless the basic types, some authors think that it could be more than only three types, for instance:

"person against society""person against machine""person against fate""person against the supernatural""person against god"

  i´m gonna give you a little summary about the three basic types that i think are the one importants for the question

person against person

  the confict involves stories where characters are against each other, is an external conflict, as in a gun fight or a robbery or it could be more subtle between the desires of the characters as in a love story. this type of conflict is very common in traditional literature, fairy tales and myths.

person against nature

  is an external conflict between the character and an animal or a force of nature, like a tornado,a storm or even a rain. a great example of this is ernest hemingway´s "the old man and the sea"   in which the main character struggle with a marlin when he was fishing.

person against self

  in this case the conflict is internal, the character must overcome her or his own nature or make a choice between two paths.

  i hope the answer is correct and you. regards

The answer is "he was bad enough in all conscience, but the devil himself could not temp him to turn slave-trader. satirical is a synonym for sarcastic. so when the author says that tom walker could not be tempted by the devil he does not literally mean "the devil" but he means that he is too morally upright to become a slave-trader.