Chapter nine of David and Goliath talks about strength, how the difficult situations that we face in life, provide us with courage, tenacity, but above all, leave the feeling of being invincible, there is no fear. Gladwell tells the story of the town of Le Chambon, this town offered asylum to Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis during the Second World War. The Huguenots challenge the impositions of the Nazis, help the Jews and emerge victorious. Gladwell argument is that the Nazis, under no circumstances could defeat the resources that the Huguenots had.
To convince us of the veracity of his argument, he uses some of the techniques of the book “They Say / I Say” through the story. For Gladwell, the Huguenots were people to whom the difficult situations that happened in life, helped them to lose their
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For example “He had plenty of extenuating circumstances, in other words, to justify a white lie.” with this metacommentary, Gladwell tells us what he thinks; for him, Trocme had the necessary reasons to justify a white lie. In the final part of the story, Gladwell says, “But in all likelihood, all that would mean is that another Andre Trocme would rise in his place.”, with this metacommentary, he reinforces his argument regarding why the Nazis did not act against Trocme, the use of force was not going to work.
In my opinion, Gladwell achieved his goal of demonstrating his argument in this story. He uses the techniques of the book "The Say / I Say" in an excellent way, and promotes his argument intelligently. For me, it is important that a writer uses these techniques in his story, because they help the reader to understand the reason of the events, and at the same time, to understand the story. With the naysayer and metacommentary, he demonstrated his argument;
The Nazis, under no circumstances could defeat the resources that the Huguenots