Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

Gryphon: Teacher and Baxter

Good Essays
805 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Gryphon: Teacher and Baxter
“Gryphon” is a short story about women.
Author showed two types of women. The first type represented by the teacher, and the second type represented by the narrator’s mother. The teacher represents women who are free and not restricted by family. She was not married, she traveled in order to explore the world, and she was well educated, while narrator’s mother was a typically housewife dependent on her husband and predestined to “full- time mothering at home” (Rich, 1996)
In the first paragraph is presented Miss Ferenczi a substitute teacher. Unlike other boring normal substitute teachers, who “provided easeful class day, and nervously covered material” (Baxter, p. 15)into the class came woman they had never seen. “She was no special age but her face had two prominent lines, descending vertically from the sides of her mouth to her chin. I knew where I had seen those lines before: Pinocchio. They were marionette lines” (Baxter, 2010). As she walks to the blackboard, picking up pieces of white and green chalk, she draws a large oak tree on the left side of the blackboard saying the class needs this tree in it. Then she told the class about her royal Hungarian ancestor. She was proud of her mother being a famous pianist who succeeded her first concert in London for “crowned heads. The substitute teacher’s behavior and personality surprised her students because she was strange. She was different from their mothers, which were uneducated housewives sitting “silently at the back of the room, doing her knitting.” (Baxter, 2010) Narrator’s mother “face and hairstyle always reminded other people of Betty Crocker, whose picture was framed inside a gigantic spoon on the side of the Bisquick box” (Baxter, 2010). For him his “mother face just looked white” (Baxter, 2010). She always had chores to do; she was only interested in cleaning and cooking. She did not participate in the life of her son, she really did not talk to him, she just command. They only have time for talking when “the father gets home” (Baxter, 2010). Everything has to be prepared before” the Lord 's” coming home. For her the most important thing was “to clean up before dinner” (Baxter, 2010).
The diamond is one symbol that helps to convey this theme. According to Miss Ferenczi “diamond s are magic and this is why women wear them on their fingers, as a sign of the magic womanhood” (Baxter, 2010). Every young girl dreams of a fairy-tale prince and to live happily ever after. In the consciousness of young women is a deeply rooted compulsion to marriage. “Women have married because it was necessary, in order to survive economically, in order to have children who would not suffer economic deprivation or social ostracism”. (Rich, 1996) In a really life it turns out that marriage is a trap. Men manifest a male power and treat “the institution of marriage and motherhood as unpaid production” (Rich, 1996). They “confine women physically and prevent their movement” (Rich, 1996). Also narrator’s mother was in this kind of trap. “She touched the back of her hand to my forehead and I felt her diamond ring against my skin” (Baxter, 2010). “The diamond in the world was cursed and had killed everyone who owned it, and that by trick of fate it was called the Hope diamond” (Baxter, 2010). The same as marriage could kill women’s creativeness and their independence. “Definition of male pursuits as more valuable than female within any culture, so that cultural values become the embodiment of male subjectivity: restriction of female self- fulfillment to marriage and motherhood”. (Rich, 1996)
In an attempt to show” the restriction of female self- fulfillment to marriage and motherhood “ (Rich, 1996) Miss Ferenczi predicted the future of their students using a tarot. Predictions are shown to be different for girls and boys. In the girl’s future she did not see higher education but she saw an early marriage, many children and tasks of housewife life, while in boy’s future: travel, late marriage and “maybe a good life” (Baxter, 2010). It is a proof that the situation of women is the same for many generations regardless of time, place and culture.
In the short story “Gryphon” were shown two women and two styles of life. A common part for these two women is just sex. The substitute teacher was as the fabulous beast – gryphon – “with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion” (Baxter, 2010) meanwhile a narrator’s mother was like a most women, who need men as social and economic protectors.

Work Cited
Charles Baxter. “Gryphon”. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandel (7th Edition). : Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. 242-253. Print.
Adriane Rich “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”. Feminism and Sexuality. Jackson E. Scott (1996).

Cited: Charles Baxter. “Gryphon”. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandel (7th Edition). : Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. 242-253. Print. Adriane Rich “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”. Feminism and Sexuality. Jackson E. Scott (1996).

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    "Gryphon" is a short story by Charles Baxter that was published in 1985. The first person point of view Baxter chose allows us to understand the story better. It also allows Tommy to portray his personal feelings toward his substitute teacher, Miss Ferenczi. The diction Baxter uses for Miss Ferenczi is rather interesting. Sometimes, when she talks to the children, she uses words that most forth grade children wouldn't understand. Our understanding of why Baxter chose her complex and confusing diction is to expand the minds of the students. Miss Ferenczi changed Mr. Hibler's forth grade students.…

    • 1167 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Creativity in the classroom is often hard to come by in schools today. Learning revolves around a certain banking system- where the instructors give lectures and the student listens and takes notes. Once in a blue moon though, a group of students will come across a teacher who opens their minds and allows them to think freely. For the students in Charles Baxter’s short story “Gryphon,” the opportunity to receive a different education from what they’re used to experiencing on a daily basis will actually benefit their way of thinking; no matter how unusual the process may be.…

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These two books determine the status and role of women during the early 20th century. I want to Interpret the stereotypes of women during the late 19th century, explore the different literary devices used in both texts, compare the similarities and differences between these two stories, and also describe the women's obligations to society in that time period.…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The story “ Gryphon ” is a long story written by Charles Baxter. This story is about a 4th grader Called Tommy who has strange liking for his new substitute teacher, Ms. Ferenczi. Tommy is a kid who has lived in Michigan for his entire life. Because Five Oaks, the town he lives in is a rural community, Tommy has never really seen anything amusing or differently new. Mrs. Ferenczi is a strange substitute teacher who tells Tommy’s class unbelievable but spectacular tales that she claims has experienced in the past. Tommy is attracted to this new pattern of behavior in the substitute teacher as all of the other substitute teachers are just college going students who teach a bunch…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In Mordecai Richler’s novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, women are represented to have a lower class than men. The women who are present in the novel include Yvette Durelle, Ida Kravitz, Minnie Kravitz, Linda Rubin and Sandra Calder. Each of these female characters are seen as helpless individuals unable to bear for themselves and left unsuccessful without men. Through Duddy’s never ending quest to own land to ultimately be successful, Richler depicts women in a negative way. They are seen as instruments to help men succeed and every so often used as traps for others. Therefore the women in this novel do not have lives of their own as they are portrayed solely as part of other men’s lives. Such exists because the lives of the women were not once explored throughout the novel, it was always through the eyes of a man and since the women are not explored, therefore this results in a male dominated novel.…

    • 1404 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Elizabeth Keckley

    • 1455 Words
    • 6 Pages

    (4)Xiomara Santamarina Feminist Studies 28, no. 3 (fall 2002) In Search of Our (5)Mother’s Garden: Womanist Prose, Alice Walker…

    • 1455 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    While Miss Brill in “Miss Brill”, Dee and Mama in “Everyday Use”, and Marji in “Persepolis,” are women of different cultures and ethnicities, their roles as women is faced with similar gender inequalities. Some might argue that women are treated as an equal gender with the same amount of opportunity as men. However, Miss Brill, Dee, Mama and Marji share in common psychological, social, and economic issues that women face not only exist today in America, but also Worldwide.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We chose the document The Frugal Housewife for our primary source analysis. When looking through online databases, we came across this document and it caught our attention because it correlated well with the topics we studied earlier in the semester about the roles of the housewife and how a woman’s gender was defined during the colonial era. We were drawn to this document because it gives us a more detailed picture of the all-encompassing knowledge women possessed and it spurred many questions in our minds that we were eager to find answers to. To divide the work evenly, we chose three sections of the source that we wanted to focus on: the title pages, the introductory section, and section about education. Each person in our group was responsible for outlining and writing about one section, then as a group, we collaborated to piece our individual writings together into one analysis.…

    • 1969 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Gryphon is a short story written by Charles Baxter. The main characters in this book are Tommy, Miss Ferenczi, and Wayne. Tommy and Wayne are fourth grade students who live in Five Oaks, Michigan. Miss Ferenczi is a substitute teacher from Saginaw Michigan, who taught in Mr. Hibler’s fourth grade class. In the story, Tommy seems to defend Miss Ferenczi by showing a pattern of behavior. Tommy defends Miss Ferenczi because he is used to Five Oaks and does not experience anything interesting.…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter, when Tommy’s fourth grade teacher Mr. Hibler get’s sick, they get a new substitute teacher. They were all expecting one of the mothers who would provide an “easeful class day”(p. 43, l.43) but instead they got something a little different and a new substitute. Her name was Ms. Ferenczi she was strange and very odd. Tommy likes strange things so I think tommy is going to like Ms. Ferenczi. Ms. Ferenczi was saying good morning to the class and she wanted to go straight to shared reading but one student said “Mr. Ferenczi Ma. Ferenczi “yes dear Ms. Ferenczi said” um we usually start class with the pledge of the alligents” and Ms. Ferenczi thinks that wastes…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During my fourth year of secondary school, I became acutely aware of the Women’s Rights Issue. I made an attempt to re-examine many of the cultural norms that I had previously accepted as just being "the natural order of things." One of the paths I took to expand my awareness of the female psyche involved women's literature. That is why I spent one weekend of my life in bed--crying, laughing, feeling sometimes confused, and often, incredibly angry and distraught. On that rainy Humboldt Friday night I had decided to read "The Women's Room."…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A Personal Tragedy

    • 2079 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Elisabeth Stuart Phelps captures the essence of time when “ young ladies had not begun to have ‘opinions’ upon the doctrine of evolution, and before feminine friendships and estrangements were founded on the distinctions between protoplasm and bioplasm” (Phelps 8). She writes a kunstlerroman novel of young woman who has the ability to go far with her artistic talent and looses her inspiration after being married. Another author who tackles similar issues is Louisa May Alcott and her novel “Little Women”. Alcott conveys different perceptions for women and conventions what they must adhere to. Conventions in this retrospect deals with ideology that at a certain age young women give up their what is determined, a ‘childhood passion’ to assume the role of a wife. Both Phelps’s novel “ The Story of Avis” and Alcott’s “ Little Women” brings forth the idea that women through marriage were being suppressed and abused by the social constraints that has been set for them. Also, the role of mother, wife and then a person conflicts with any aspirations for being financially independent and/ or a woman seeking a creative lifestyle. A more contemporary type thinking might question this by asking why cant women have the best of worlds, a family and a career? However, Phelps and Alcott works speaks for them by giving us a realistic and creative outlook on domestic life for women who want both.…

    • 2079 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    References: 1. Olcott, Lynn. (2006 October 30). “The Ballad of a Single Mother”. Writing in the Disciplines. 7th edition. 446-447. New Jersey. Pearson.…

    • 1356 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the anecdote by Virginia Wolf, the author reflects on men’s oppression affecting women’s intellectual pursuit in the twentieth century. Employing metaphors and simile, she exemplifies women succumbing to restrictions and boundaries placed upon them in their education.…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Philosophy of Education

    • 6116 Words
    • 25 Pages

    LEACH, MARY S. 1991. "Mothers of In (ter) vention: Women 's Writing in Philosophy of Education." Educational Theory 41:287–300.…

    • 6116 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Powerful Essays