How Does Baxter Tell The Story In Gryphon

In the short story, “Gryphon” , a book by Charles Baxter, a boy in a school in Five Oaks, Michigan defends a substitute teacher named Miss Ferenczi who tells interesting stories that are sometimes true. Tommy slowly through the story begins to like Miss Ferenczi as her stories become more mysterious. She thanks them for being a great class by bringing a Tarot pack to school to tell all the students destinies. One student named Wayne Razmer is dealt a death card and tells the principal, which gets Miss Ferenczi kicked out of the school. Because Tommy liked her, he beats up Wayne and is sent to the principal. Tommy defends Miss Ferenczi because not much happens in the rural town, so when something interesting happens, he wants it to stay as long as it can to “escape” the boring town. …show more content…
“‘I don’t like that word either,’ Miss Ferenczi whispered bent over, her mouth near my ear. ‘It’s ugly. My feeling is, if you don’t like a word, you don’t have to use it.’” (P.50, L. 245 - 258). When Tommy couldn’t spell the word “balcony”, Miss Ferenczi gave him advice, which helped him with his problem. “After five minutes I found it. Gryphon: ‘variant of griffin.’ Griffin: ‘a fabulous beast…’ Fabulous was right.” (P. 59, L. 490-493). Tommy defends Miss Ferenczi by taking evidence from a book to show that her stories weren’t fake. Because Miss Ferenczi helped Tommy with his spelling test, Tommy helped her not seem like a