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Chapter 8: Wilma Derksen
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in David and Goliath, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Convention and the Status Quo
Hardship and Resilience
Conviction, Morality, and Empathy
Summary
Analysis
Gladwell tells a story about a French mountain town named Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. When the Nazis took control of France in 1940, they allowed the country to establish a government run by a former World War I hero, Marshal Philippe Pétain, who acted as a dictator. Pétain pursued the same anti-Semitic agenda as the Nazis and required all French schools to hang the flag and issue fascist salutes each morning. Everyone followed suit—everyone except the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a religious town inhabited for centuries by various “dissident Protestant sects.” At the time, a Huguenot sect lived in the area with a pacifist named André Trocmé as its pastor. The entire town listened to Trocmé, who urged them to refrain from doing anything the government ordered that might go against their morals. At the Collège Cévenol, the school Trocmé founded, he refused to hang the French flag.
As soon as Gladwell introduces André Trocmé, it becomes clear that he is a man with considerable “disagreeability,” the trait Gladwell has previously suggested many innovators and great minds possess. Unafraid of personal persecution, Trocmé doesn’t care what the fascist rulers think of him, refusing to do anything that would go against his morals. Accordingly, he rejects Pétain’s expectations and exposes himself to danger, exhibiting a wholesome kind of conviction motivated not by anger or a desire for power, but by empathy and morality.
Themes
As World War II rages on, Pétain demands more and more from the people of France. For instance, he wants all teachers to sign oaths of loyalty to the French state, but Trocmé and the other teachers at Cévenol refuse to do so. During this time, it becomes less and less safe for Jewish people to live in France. Hearing that Le Chambon is safe, though, a number of Jewish people come to the town for refuge. And though it’s dangerous, Trocmé greets them with open arms. For this reason, more and more people make their way to Le Chambon.
André Trocmé’s willingness to go against Pétain and his fascist regime is directly linked to his moral conscience. He is not the kind of person who will set aside his beliefs in order to cooperate with coercive, power-hungry figures of authority. In this way, his convictions are pure and unimpeachable.
Themes
In 1942, the youth affairs minister of Pétain’s government visits Le Chambon because Pétain wants to establish youth camps around the country. Instead of welcoming the minister by staging a fantastic celebration, though, the people of Le Chambon go out of their way to give him a tepid, flat reception (one server even “accidentally” spills soup down his back). Then, during dinner, a group of students delivers a note to the minister that Trocmé helped them compose. The note criticizes the French government’s treatment of Jewish people and expresses concern that officials will begin terrorizing Jewish people in their area of France. It also admits that there are a number of Jewish people in Le Chambon, adding that the townspeople don’t distinguish between Jewish and non-Jewish people because to do so would be to go against the Gospel. Finally, the letter ends with the following sentences: “We have Jews. You’re not getting them.”
André Trocmé’s entire community adopts his “disagreeability,” setting their moral concerns above all else—even their safety. Despite the fact that it was very dangerous for people to shelter Jewish people during World War II, the people of Le Chambon refuse to be threatened into betraying their beliefs. In turn, they demonstrate that underdogs may go up against powerful enemies simply because they wholeheartedly believe in remaining true to themselves, even in the face of adversity.
Themes
Although the French government searched Le Chambon on several occasions, they never found any Jewish people. This is partially because Trocmé would often receive secret warnings before the officials reached town. What’s more, when the police did show up unannounced, they would make their presence known and then spend a long time drinking coffee at the local café in order to give everyone in town time to hide or escape. But Gladwell notes that these aren’t the only reasons the townspeople of Le Chambon remained unharmed by an otherwise relentless and dangerous government. The real reason, he says, is that the Huguenots had been persecuted for generations and were, as a result, accustomed to this kind of resistance. For hundreds of years, they endured Catholic violence. When it came time to act in support of the Jewish people, Trocmé’s wife says, nobody thought twice.
Gladwell upholds that the people of Le Chambon are capable of withstanding pressure from fascists because they’ve developed great resilience over the years. This, he argues, is because they know what it’s like to be persecuted—an idea that supports his overarching argument that hardship often leads to unprecedented amounts of courage and adaptability. According to this mindset, then, Pétain’s fascist regime is unable to intimidate them into turning away from their morals, meaning that their historical disadvantages have ultimately become advantages now that they’re facing yet another terrifying regime.
Themes
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However, it’s not completely true that Trocmé gets away with keeping Jewish families from the Nazis. Six months after the minister visits Le Chambon, he and his friend, Édouard Theis, are imprisoned in an internment camp. One month later, though, they’re informed that they’ll be released as long as they sign a pledge to obey governmental orders “without question.” They refuse, even though it means risking their lives. The guards can’t believe it, screaming at them and insisting that the oath doesn’t go against their values. But Trocmé points out that signing the pledge would mean he’d have to stop hiding Jewish people—something he has no intention of doing. Exasperated, the guards give up and release him and Theis.
There are no circumstances in which André Trocmé is willing to compromise his morals. And though most people would assume that this attitude puts him in grave danger, his conviction is so unwavering and unexpected that his fascist persecutors don’t know what to do with him. Consequently, his unyielding commitment to honoring his conscience ends up benefitting him, once again proving that it often pays to undermine convention.
Themes
On another occasion, Trocmé is forced to flee Le Chambon with false papers. When he’s eventually arrested, he faces a dilemma: if the officers ask him if his papers list his true name, he’ll be forced to lie—something he’s adamantly against. Fortunately, he manages to slip away with his son before an interaction like this takes place, though he’d already decided to tell the truth if an officer asked for his real name. This, Gladwell says, is because Trocmé is “disagreeable” in the same way as Jay Freireich, Wyatt Walker, and Fred Shuttlesworth. Simply put, he doesn’t care what might happen to him, as long as he honors his principles. And this, Gladwell notes, is the hardest kind of person to control or beat. Of course, people in power can always kill individuals like Trocmé, but this kind of behavior tends to backfire.
The reason that it’s ineffective to simply kill “disagreeable” people is directly linked to Gladwell’s analysis of what happened during the Troubles. By responding to the Catholic community’s actions with unrelenting force, General Ian Freeland only exacerbated the situation, causing the Catholics of Northern Ireland to view the British authorities with even more disdain than before. Similarly, to kill Trocmé would do nothing to stop the Huguenots of Le Chambon from helping Jewish people, since they believe that this is the right thing to do and will not change their minds in response to the threat of violence. This is the same kind of moralistic conviction that Jay Freireich, Wyatt Walker, and Fred Shuttlesworth all have, suggesting that effective champions of change are motivated by their morals, not by revenge or power.
Themes
As a child, Trocmé witnessed the death of his mother in a gruesome car accident. Throughout his life, he remembered this day and committed himself to God as a way of compensating for the sadness and loneliness that came from losing his mother. With this in mind, Gladwell asserts that the majority of the people who helped protect the Jewish people during World War II weren’t privileged and powerful, but struggling and disadvantaged. And this, he says, is because hardship can create the kind of courage necessary to take otherwise unfathomable risks.
Concluding both Trocmé’s story and the book itself, Gladwell returns to one of his central arguments, which is that adversity often leads to positive outcomes. Moreover, he suggests that people who have nothing to lose find themselves in unexpected positions of power, since they’re free to do whatever it takes to overcome even the most unlikely challenges. In this way, he illustrates one final time that people ought to reconsider how they define disadvantages, since seemingly terrible circumstances are capable of propelling otherwise disempowered people to greatness.
Themes
