Assume that Chen is making an argument as well as telling Megan Phelps-Roper’s story. What passages reveal the larger argument that he is making? Why might he tell this story as a way to make this argument?
I think Chen tells Phelps-Roper’s story as a way to make the reader truly believe that empathy can be learned. Megan provides a great example for this and makes it easy for people to understand rather than just giving people tons of facts and making it difficult for the reader to understand what the point of the article is. A story allows Chen to provide the evidence necessary for a reader to understand what is going on. I think a great example used in the story was Megan and her family picketing military funerals and watching mourning people walk into the funeral with disgust on their face. “Everybody’s in close quarters, and marines in dress blues are just staring at us with- the word that comes to mind is hateful ‘disgust’”(Chen 78). This quote shows how she is able to understand just a little bit that people are disgusted by the church saying “the word that comes to mind is hateful ‘disgust” and this is an influence on her change and she eventually leaves from the church. This article is a good example of expressing how one is able to gain knowledge and learn the skill of empathy.
