AP Prompt (with answer)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/books/ants-among-elephants-a-memoir-about-the-persistence-of-caste.html

Throughout the passage, Michiko Kakutani reflects on how the book "Ants Among Elephants" reveals the true societal discourse of modern day India. In a short essay, describe how Michiko Kakutani uses literary devices to describe her complex relationship with the book "Ants Among Elephants". You may want to consider devices such as diction and tone.

       In the passage, it is made apparent how an outsider to India "looking in" might think that the old days of the Indian Hindu caste system has been completely removed or at least lessened in society. However, as much as it is a shock to Michiko, the truth is far from that point of view. In a reaction to the book "Ants Among Elephants", Michiko Kakutani uses literary devices such as diction and tone to express not only her overall shock at the continued existence of the discriminatory caste system in India, but also her empathy toward people who are discriminated against and disenfranchised.

     The evidence of Michiko using tone and diction in unison to show her reaction can be seen throughout the passage, especially in the first sentence where she describes the book as being a very 'unsentimental' and 'poignant' read. She continues on in this showing of sadness and sympathy by what she decides to reveal about the book's own text. She reveals the book's lecture on the caste system, how it works in society, and what it can create to and between people that prevents certain interactions from ever happening. Michiko starts revealing the contents of the book with the phrase (from the book) "everyone knows everyone else. Each caste has its own special role and its own place to live. The Brahmins (who perform priestly functions), the potters, the blacksmiths, the carpenters, the washer people and so on — they each have their own separate place to live within the village. The untouchables, whose special role — whose hereditary duty — is to labor in the fields of others or to do other work that Hindu society considers filthy, are not allowed to live in the village at all. They must live outside the boundaries of the village proper. They are not allowed to enter temples. Not allowed to come near sources of drinking water used by other castes. Not allowed to eat sitting next to a caste Hindu or to use the same utensils" (paragraph 2). This immediately reveals that Michiko is only showing interest in the very downtrodden parts of the book by using this early of an establishment of what we would consider a 'backwards culture'. This trend then continues when Michiko then adds the personal story of the book's author's uncle being turned down by a fair lady in college once she found out he was a lower caste than her, even though she had originally shown interest in him through her flirtations. 

     Whenever she finds the opportunity, Michiko Kakutani only seems to show the sad parts of the book to reveal her underlying empathy with the characters in it naturally trying to go against a society that is against them from the beginning. Michiko never dwells on the parts in the passage like the author's uncle being a Maoist revolutionary or anything that might invoke hatred in a reader but instead focuses on all the parts that would invoke empathy and sadness in the reader.