Preview

Analysis Of The Story 'Gryphon' By Charles Baxter

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
163 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of The Story 'Gryphon' By Charles Baxter
Om Awate
Mrs. Asselin
Language arts 6/7
14 december, 2015
Title
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

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the story called Gryphon by Charles Baxter, Tommy, a student of Mr. Hibler, got a substitute which was Ms.Ferenczi. Why was Tommy defending Ms. Ferenczi? Well, Tommy defended Ms. Ferenczi in many different ways.…

    • 225 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
  • Better Essays

    The story Gryphon is from a student’s point of view. The student ends up losing their teacher because of a sickness. So then a substitute teacher is assigned to their classroom. Miss Ferenczi is a substitute that does not teacher like the narrator is used to teaching compared to a “normal substitute.” The teacher does this by the first appearance the students see when they walk in.…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better 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
  • Better Essays

    Charles Baxter introduces Miss Ferenczi into the fourth grade class of Five Oaks community in a mysterious way. Unlike other boring normal substitute teachers the children are used to, she comes in with her purple purse and checkerboard lunchbox signaling the beginning of an unusual experience. 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. This first scene alone has already created a mystic fog about the new teacher 's behavior and personality. She then tells the class about her royal Hungarian ancestor, which adds more to the strange atmosphere. She was proud of her mother being a famous pianist who succeeded her first concert in London for "crowned heads." The way she nostalgically looks up to the ceiling, makes the students follow her eyes but see nothing except for ceiling tiles. Her actions are far more than what fourth graders can possibly understand. This is the start of strange events following in the plot. However the most remarkable detail is her physical appearance: "her face had two prominent lines, descending vertically from the sides of her mouth to her chin." This abnormal feature is foreshadowing for what happens later on and also a hint at an unreal, numinous personality. The two lines remind Tommy, the little narrator, of Pinocchio. The comparison of Miss Ferenczi to this character is foretelling of her later unreliability of her words, since, like Pinocchio, her nose is also prone…

    • 1181 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald the author uses various techniques to set up contrasts and conflicts within the first chapter to show the corruption of the American Dream in the 1920’s when the book was set and also the corruption of the people during the roaring twenties. Examples of the techniques used to express these themes are characterization, dialogue, figurative language, diction choices , symbolism and foreshadowing. Throughout the book our narrator is Nick Carraway who comes from middle west America and in the first chapter he “went East to learn the bond business” and rents a house in West Egg, Long Island. One of the conflicting aspect in the first chapter done by Fitzgerald was through showing the broken marriage of the Buchanan’s. The author uses foreshadowing ,dialogue and diction choices. Nick goes over to the Buchanan’s home in East Egg for dinner with Daisy and Tom Buchanan and family friend, Jordan Baker. During dinner Daisy burnt herself and blamed Tom saying “...That’s what i get for marrying a brute of a man...hulking physical specimen of a-” - ‘ ...objected Tom crossly ‘ The words “brute” and ”physical specimen” are all animalistic adjectives and ‘specimen’ suggests that he isn’t even human this shows Tom’s violence and savageness which foreshadows Tom’s violence towards Myrtle further into the book. Also the fact that Daisy describes Tom as this vicious man and she still stays married with him anyway implies that she isn’t independent and can’t survive on her own almost as if she needed him. Additionally the way Tom cuts off her sentence “objected crossly” shows how he doesn’t respect Daisy and is the more assertive and dominant person in the relationship, the word “crossly” would show the reader how patronizing Tom is because to be cross with someone it would typically be between a parent and a child where the parent is more superior. Another thing the reader finds out…

    • 1379 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Passage: “Ah, I thought so. For it were strange indeed, and not very creditable to us white-skins, if a little of our blood mixed with the African's, should, far from improving the latter's quality, have the sad effect of pouring vitriolic acid into black broth; improving the hue, perhaps, but not the wholesomeness.”…

    • 169 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Jay Gatsby started running booze during prohibition, just like the southerners started running moonshine. You had to have a quick car and a skilled and fast driver to run alcohol in the 1920’s. Both boot legging during prohibition and after in the 30’s and 40’s tie in with Gatsby’s wealth and the start of car racing. Gatsby’s love of expensive and fast cars could have been derived from his old habit of running illegal booze. In fact after Gatsby’s death he gets a call saying one of the men got caught running “shine”. Gatsby was most defiantly connected with the running of alcohol, which contributed to the rise of stock car racing.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In addition, the unique structure is evident in both “Chronicles of A death Foretold” and “The Great Gatsby”, but the use of structure was used to play the same purpose in both novel; and that is to demonstrate the chronology and its effect in justifying the death evident in both novels. In Chronicle of a death foretold the most prominent form of structure that was evident is narrative structure. The way in which the author divided the narrative structure of the plot and events is through 5 sections. The first section is the morning of Santiago Nasar’s Death, the second section is the historical aspect were the reader learns about the past of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario, the third section is the morning of Santiago’s death which is…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many people question themselves when they think they aren’t right about something because everyone else around them believes the opposite. What you think might be truer than you think because the world tends to believe what they want to, and not the truth. In Plato’s philosophical example of life in the “Allegory of the Cave” he explains and questions his views on human existence and the reality of things. Everyone has a different reality and a way that they perceive things but other factors like the media influence and persuade us. The media has the power through the radio, television, or other technologies to tell us things that might not even be true but we have to believe them because we don’t know what is true. The media even hides the truth in the news, has the ability to persuade us to believe something, and influences human existence.…

    • 1404 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The dictionary characterizes madness as "mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it”. Emily Dickinson once composed that “Much Maness is divinest sense- / To a discerning Eye”. This statement raises the question of have writers like Mary Shelley, Peter Shaffer, J.D. Salinger and Zora Neale Hurston exhibited a “discerning eye” in creating some of literature’s most unconventional, seemingly irrational characters or have these writers put forth an alternative statement about eccentricity?…

    • 173 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hundreds might have flocked to Jay Gatsby’s mansion on the weekends to party the night away, but do extravagant get-togethers and large sums of money give the title The Great to somebody? One cannot be considered great because of money or parties. An individual must earn the title great by being truthful, hardworking, and respectful. Jay Gatsby cannot be considered great because he is dishonest, earned his fortune through illegal activity, and too focused on the past.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    F. Scott Fitzgerald subtlety reveals the truth behind Jay Gatsby’s life, unearthing Gatsby from the shadow of lies, in order for Gatsby to remain a mystery throughout the novel. In Chapter 3, rumors spread at one of Gatsby’s parties about his own self. “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once” (44). No one is quite sure at this point whether these comments are truthful or not; and so an immediate representation of Jay Gatsby’s character becomes embedded into the reader’s mind. Perhaps Gatsby hides behind these rumors because he does not care what other people say; and he only wants to focus on being with Daisy. In Chapter 4, Jay Gatsby reveals information about himself to Nick Carraway. Nick knew Gatsby was lying,…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby’s life is seen through the eyes of Nick Carraway. He had recently moved to West Egg, a peninsula off of Long Island. Next door lived an eccentric wealthy man named Jay Gatsby. Across the bay, his cousin Daisy lived with her husband in East Egg. Five years ago Daisy and Gatsby had met in her hometown and fell in love briefly before he had to serve in the war. With the arrival of Nick the two were reacquainted. Though many claim that The Great Gatsby was a tragic love story, it was actually a representation of the unattainable american dream. In the novel F Scott Fitzgerald uses Daisy as a metaphor of what Gatsby could never have and what he needed to complete his dream through the use of symbolism and diction.…

    • 263 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many themes were shown by F. Scott Fitzgerald from the novel, The Great Gatsby. One…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays