Analysis Of The Story 'Gryphon' By Charles Baxter

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The story “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter is about a boy named Tommy who attends Five Oaks Elementary School. His teacher, Mr. Hibler, develops a cough and is absent the next day. The person who takes his place is a woman named Miss Ferenczi. Since Five Oaks is a normal town with substitute teachers that “fluttered, provided easeful class days, and nervously covered material we had mastered weeks earlier,” Tommy thought that Miss Ferenczi was something special. (pg. 43, l. 43-45)She is a strange substitute and Tommy wants to believe everything she says, but other people, like Carl Whiteside (which Tommy observes, has bad breath), don’t believe her. Once Tommy gets home, all he talks about to his mother is Miss Ferenczi, but his mother doesn’t

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