Charles Baxter's short stories are well-known for the strong presents of ordinary people encountering extraordinary strangers who disturb their lives. “Gryphon” written by Charles Baxter is not an exception. The story is filled with characters that are awaken from their boring lives and transported into a world of possibilities. As a central idea of the story, Baxter's critics often mention “middle America's” conventions, and the effect it has on anyone who does not fit the mold. Within “Gryphon” the reader experiences a few days in the life of fourth grade class; specifically, a few days spent with a unique substitute teacher. The narrative outlines, on many occasions, the unsureness in the face of the unknown. Is the society ready to accept someone who deviates from the limits of the norm?
The title of the story is very significant in the context that follows. Gryphon is a mythical, mysterious creature. The term is almost never used to describe the life of the fourth grade students. In this case, it works perfectly. A cleaver metaphor describes Miss Ferenczi in her role of substitute teacher that this fourth grade class is introduced to. Gryphon is an imaginary creature with the rear body of a lion and an eagle head. The parallel between the substitute teacher and the unreal creation serves a multipurpose metaphor. It is used to portrayed Miss Ferenczi's appearance and her teaching methods. Like a gryphon, Miss Ferenczi is misunderstood, courageous, and intelligent. With a picture like this in mind, it is effortless to see why she would be an outcast.
The outward physical appearance of such a creature is not widely accepted. Miss Ferenczi is depicted as dressed strangely, her hair do is bizarre “done up in chignon”(24...
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...classroom is his world and he attempts to make the best of it. The narrator likes Miss Ferenczi. He doesn't just want to listen to her. He produces evidences in her favor. He makes up stories of his own. At one point, he consults the dictionary and finds “gryphon” defined as a “fabulous beast.” He misinterprets the word fabulous, and he believes in the existence of the beast. Tommy's character stands for the small part of unaltered society that is still willing to accept the extraordinary aspects of life.
The last paragraph is full of small details. Details of “no mystery”(256) now become noticeable. Because of Miss Ferenczi's influence every fact from the world starts to take an element of strangeness. After Miss Ferenczi was gone, life in Five Oaks restored it's ignorant peace, but her larger that life spirit remained alive in a heart of the fourth grader Tommy.
In the story, ”Gryphon,” by Charles Baxter, Tommy, a boy in the story, had sometimes defended Miss Ferenczi. I think Tommy defends Miss Ferenczi because he had interest in her and wanted to know about her more as a teacher. Miss Ferenczi told the students that she had seen an animal has its body half bird and half lion. While Tommy was going home on the bus, on line 413, Tommy said “She was strange.”. I think this has a part that meant Tommy started to have interest in her as a teacher because he felt something different from other teachers. Here are some reasons why I think that Tommy has interest in Miss Ferenczi and defended her. Why do you think Tommy had defended Miss Ferenczi?
The book opens with, “small trees had attacked my parents' house at the foundation” (Erdrich 4) The initial conflict in this story is that Joe’s mother, Geraldine, is raped. This event becomes the seed of all other problems that come to exist in the story. It is detrimental to the foundation of their family. The opening line is the greatest metap...
The author, Melina Marchetta applies a variety of familiar and stereotypical events in the book. From cases such as the different characters, their characteristics and their reaction upon certain events that occur in the book. One great example of a stereotypical event in this book is the relationship between Josephine Alibrandi and Jacob Coote who is the school captain of a public school called Cook High. “He cracked two eggs on my glasses once” (32).
In “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter, a class of fourth grade students gets a substitute teacher. She is very eccentric but knowledgeable and tells the whole class a lot of myths and facts. It is up to the class to decide what is true or not.
Tommy is bored by his small town with its “ordinary lesson, complete with vocabulary and drills,” at school (p. 46, l. 137), and his mom not listening about his day, “Did you hear me?...You have chores to do.” (p. 58, l. 477-479) Everyone knows everyone else in Five Oaks. In comes Mrs. Ferenczi talking about things he and his classmates had never heard of before. Things like a half bird-half lion called a Sryphon, Saturn and its mysterious clouds, and sick dogs not drinking from rivers but waiting for rain all in one lesson (p. 55-56, l. 393-403). Ideas never stop coming and they branch out from each other before they are properly explained. Most of the kids feel she lies, but Tommy joins her in …. (Write here about how Tommy begins to make up stories like Mrs. F.) Think of the progression: looks-up “Gryphon” in the dictionary….makes-up “Humpster “ story….”sees” unusual trees on the bus ride home….yells at & fights
All in all, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton shows us the impact of how social classes in society can be perceived. The author successfully establishes that two worlds, no matter how different they may be, still have a commonality between them. This gives the readers a greater understanding that regardless of how big the difference is, there can still be an
This book was written in 1st person from the perspective of Tex McCormick to allow the reader to see the challenges and predicaments that he faces from his point of view and see his thoughts and reactions to the situations he endures. This can, though, sometimes show a more naive side to him, in some instances - when he jumped the creek at the gravel pits (70 - 73); placed the lure in his pocket (84 - 88); glued caps on the typewriters (144 - 152). This can influence the readers to sometimes feel empathetic towards him, and other times feel annoyed at how naive he can be. Furthermore, though this idea has proved beneficial to S.E. Hinton’s idea of the story, in some cases it has also hindered her idea and placed more emphasis on his ignorance and foolishness.
Cheever begins the story explaining the Westcotts’ social class standing, stating, “Jim and Irene Westcott were the kind of people who seem to strike that satisfactory average of income, endeavor, and respectability that is reached by the statistical reports in college alumni bulletins.” (Cheever 101) It is assumed that the other residents of their apartment complex live a similar lifestyle. Through the development of the Westcotts’ neighbor’s personal lives via “the enormous radio,” Irene realizes that the middle-class households surrounding her are living...
The story takes place in a rural Michigan community. This is important since, in a more urbanized place, someone very different like Miss Ferenczi may not be so mysterious and unheard of. Towards the beginning of the story, Tommy even says “…the supply of substitute teachers was limited to the town’s unemployed community college graduates, a pool of about four mothers” (Kirszner 246). This provides an emphasis on how Miss Ferenczi wasn’t just mysterious to them, it was a substitute they have never seen before. A majority of the short story takes place in the fourth-grade classroom. However, some small parts of the story take place in different locations like the bus, and Tommy’s house. The setting is important to understanding why someone like Miss Ferenczi is considered strange, and to understand the circumstances that the story is
John Knowles’ main protagonist Gene Forrester is a student at the Devon School in New Hampshire, living a content life during World War II. An intellectual and quiet student, he surprisingly befriends his adventurous and spontaneous roommate Phineas, also known as Finny. If Robert Zajonc could comment on their friendship, he would allude
One of the first example of conformity that is in the book, is a scene when Kathy, the narrator, is recalling a time when Tommy was constantly being pranked and bullied by other students just to see his reactions. “ I thought sooner or later someone would start saying it had gone too far, but it just kept on, and no one said anything”( Ishiguro 15). This statement by Kathy is ironic and out of place because she is the only person who feels
Growing up in the society that is today’s American society, this idea that people are aiming for averageness rather than excellence can seem so absurd. The fact that Harrison’s description as a “genius” and “athlete” was supposed to make people afraid of him, that Hazel’s lack of intelligence and all-around averageness is described as “perfectly average,” and that the ballerina reading the television broadcast apologizes for her voice because it was “a warm, luminous, and timeless melody” can be very difficult to grasp. “Genius” and “athlete” are words of flattery, lack of intelligence is never desired, “average” is an insult, and people on the television are supposed to be have good voices. Or so we thought. By using this negative context and this negative attitude from characters toward equality, Vonnegut successfully creates this new idea where things that we consider to be wonderful and consider to be people’s strengths today are frowned upon and deemed as flaws.
Adolph Myers, a kind and gentle man "[ is] meant by nature to be a teacher of youth"(215), however, the towns' people can not understand that the male school teacher - a not so common phenomenon at the time--spoke soothingly with his hands and voice only to "carry a dream into the young minds" (215) of his students. The young school teacher was wrongfully accused of doing "unspeakable things" to his students, and as a result was beaten and run out of town without being given a chance to explain the his love for the children was pure, and that he had done nothing wrong. Therefore, as young Adolph Myers, whose only crime is of being a good and caring person runs out of Pennsylvania, old Wing Biddlebaum, the lonely and confused victim of a close-minded society walks into Winesburg Ohio.
When I entered kindergarten, I learned it was possible to not belong in a place where you are supposed to be. I felt the terrible urge to flee so I dove head first into a tide pool of books and cracked my head on the rocky bottom because I could only read the word and not the purpose for them. I didn’t read because they understood, to feel at home or to escape but to avoid the small eyes and threat of awkwardness. And the fear kept me reading, blind to the pages until we were given the Great Gatsby in my junior English class. It was my teacher's favorite book. Reading it in class was like being stuck in traffic for a month and a half. He continued to slam on the breaks between chapters paragraphs and in the middle of sentences to point out
...it up to each reader to draw their own conclusions and search their own feelings. At the false climax, the reader was surprised to learn that the quite, well-liked, polite, little convent girl was colored. Now the reader had to evaluate how the forces within their society might have driven such an innocent to commit suicide.