Miss Ferenczi In The Short Story 'Gryphon' By Charles Baxter

Improved Essays
In the short story entitled “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter the character Miss Ferenczi is introduced as Tommy’s new substitute teacher. Although Miss Ferenczi teaching methods contrasted that of Mr.Hibler and other instructors, Miss Ferenczi tends to be a great teacher because of her enthusiastic approach with initiating class, aiding students in expanding their imagination, and her compassion towards students when they encounter a mistake. One of Miss Ferenczi’s great attributes was starting class as soon as the bell would ring. Ferenczi understood that time was very valuable for students to obtain full advantage of their education. For instance, when a classmate of tommy informs the teacher that their instructor Mr.Hibler begins the school day

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Title In the story ‘’Gryphon’’ by Charles Baxter, the main character, Tommy, defends a strange substitute teacher named Miss. Ferenczi. There are multiple reasons why Tommy defends Mrs. Ferenczi, but I am only going to tell you five reasons. I think Tommy likes Mrs. Ferenczi because she is strange. While riding on the school bus home with Carl Whiteside Tommy says the phrase, “I had liked her.…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In this essay, Gould describes the performance of "Madam Jeanette" conducted by Wilhousky. Returning to his old high school chorus after thirty years, Len and Gould reminisce in their diverse and musically-talented childhood. Comparing his chorus to the one in that time, Gould recognizes that at a young age, students cannot put the right amount of emotion into the music. Along with this, the number of male participants has dropped drastically, and try-outs may no longer be necessary as the ratio of girls to boys is outrageously uneven. With these setbacks, Gould wonders if the students have put the excellence of Wilhousky aside.…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Journal 5 “I Just Want To Be Average” is the Essay I most identify with. Wanting to fit in and be part of a group. Also, how the school and school system can have a large influence on a student’s life. I seem to have the analogous issues with the classroom as Mike Rose does. How he had a hard time concentrating on and trying to enjoy the material being taught.…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves” ~ May Lamberton Becker. Growing up is ia full of hard, uncomfortable decisions and moments, we all have to grow up and change. “A&P” by John Updike; “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter; and “Doe Season” by David Kaplan are all coming-of-age stories where each main character learns about themselves and life in general and taken together tell us that life is all about the choices we make, and the effects of those choices. In “A&P”, Sammy is a 19-year -old, opinionated young man who decides to take a stand against his manager and defend Queenie. He is motivated by his curiosity her mien invokes in him, and because he feels apathetic about his position.…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Miss canister is the only teacher that gets pokey, she teaches him a way that no other teacher would., which is having fun with it. They both joke around and laugh through the learning process. While they continue to try and learn , Pokey’s self confidence starts to get higher and higher every step of the way, Pokeys states “She wood smile - she did hav a nice one - but then she wood put down a mark for me which was usually toward the end of the alphabet” (19). They would always have a fun time learning.…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Conventional Meets Interesting Gryphons, or griffons, are mythological creatures with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. The new substitute teacher talks about these in the short story “Gryphon” written by Charles Baxter. This new substitute teacher comes in and disregards everything that the class had learned and done before that. Within the few days that she is there, she goes on to tell the class wild things about mythological creatures and angles that she claimed to have seen which made me think that she was kind of crazy. My Overall response was, like the narrator, intrigue.…

    • 1254 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Introduction: Child development involves emotional, physical, sociable, and intellect changes over a period from conception through adolescence. Childhood is a multifaceted process in which many changes occur. To fully understand the changes throughout childhood, one interview and observation was conducted to a toddler perspective, and a second interview and observation was implemented on a school-age child. Vast changes arise from infancy and toddlerhood, jumping to later childhood, and that was deceptive when comparing the outcomes from the two observations. Alex, who is eight years old, was the topic of the school-age child interview and observation.…

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Monologue Of Bunker

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Mr Mattson, the very unconceited teacher, we all love oh-so very much. By school, he meant the section of bunker concealed by curtains in which all those under the age of 18 go to learn arithmetic and the English language. The first of the student body awoke “Mr Mattson, STOP! You’re embarrassing yourself,” the indignant male student, Khronos: son of the timekeeper, stated from his golden tower,…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Significance of the Gryphon In Charles Baxter’s “Gryphon”, a substitute teacher named miss Ferenczi told the tale of her seeing a “Gryphon” influencing the idea of imagination and knowing of interesting facts (597). Characterizing miss Ferenczi herself as a unique person the children get exposed too. Different from what the norm is in an education system. Being new to a community where the children were used to mothers and college graduates being there substitute having an unfamiliar face in the class already drew their minds to curiosity (592-593).…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Conformism In Gryphon

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Miss Ferenczi is a breath of fresh air to the children because she encourages the children to think different. “You are free to think what you like. When Mr. Hibler returns, six times eleven will be sixty-six again” (248). Miss Ferenczi wants the children to spend less times in things that they know well and spend more time on exploring new ideas. In the beginning of class, she did not do the Pledge of Allegiance which she thinks is a waste of time since they know it so well already (247).…

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the short story “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter, the main character is Tommy, who is a young boy in fourth grade and goes to Five Oaks, and he defends his interesting, unique substitute teacher, Miss Ferenczi. In the beginning of the story, Tommy’s teacher, Mr.Hibler developed a cough and finally decides that he is too sick to carry on. The next day, a strange woman walks into class, “carrying a purple purse, a checkerboard lunchbox, and some books (p. 43, l. 45) She had “her light hair in a chignon and was wearing gold-rimmed glasses” (p. 44, l. 71)…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Odd in Five Oaks Gryphon is a story by Charles Baxter made in Tommy’s point of view. In Five Oaks, Michigan, there is rarely anything interesting occurring. At his unenthusiastic school, Tommy’s 4th grade teacher, Mr. Hibler, gets terribly sick and calls in for a substitute the next day. Tommy expects the substitute teacher to be community college graduate moms who nervously cover material that the class has already mastered.…

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Some people will argue that a teacher should simply be a person who transfers important information and facts to their students, while others say that a teacher should promote creativity and happiness in their classroom. Studies have shown that students believe that their teachers need to relax, destress, and have a sense of humor in order to maintain a productive classroom. They say that having a boring teacher who teaches boring lessons, makes them feel uncomfortable in school. So, by creating an atmosphere of positivity and freedom to make mistakes, students become more likely to succeed in their studies. However, the concept of a teacher not only acting in an authoritative position, but a friendly one as well, can be controversial in some…

    • 2032 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis of the Short Story “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter In the short story, “Gryphon”, the author, Charles Baxter, writes a story about a fourth-grader named Tommy who gets a strange substitute teacher, Miss Ferenczi, who tells “substitute facts” in order to expand students’ minds and make them wonder more (Baxter 253). The setting of the story is mainly in Tommy’s fourth-grade classroom at Garfield-Murray School in Five Oaks, “a rural community” in Michigan (Baxter 251). It takes place from October to December during the late 1900’s (presumably early 1980’s). Due to Miss Ferenczi’s strange persona, the main character Tommy, Carol Peterson, Wayne Razmer, Carl Whiteside, and many other classmates are taught in an unconventional form, which gives…

    • 1315 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays