Standing Up In Charles Baxter's 'Gryphon'

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Umer Siddiqi Mrs. Asselin Language Arts 6/7 14 December, 15 Standing Up The story “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter is about a 4th grade observing and stubborn boy named Tommy who has a really interesting and weird substitute teacher named Ms. Ferenczi. As Tommy says, “savoring the imminent weirdness of the day”(pg.44 l.76-77) because of the weird substitute teacher. In this story, Tommy shows many different ways of how he respects and defends Miss. Ferenczi. Why Tommy defends Miss. Ferenczi is because she added something new and different to his life, something he didn’t know. On the bus,Tommy is talking to Carl Whiteside and wondering why he is being so stubborn against what Miss. Ferenczi is saying. Tommy thinks that the story is true, so …show more content…

When Wayne came, Tommy got up and made his way towards him. Wayne had told on Miss. Ferenczi and now she was gone, disappeared. However,Tommy wasn’t going to let that slide. It was payback time. “‘She just scared you,” I said. “ You’re a chicken…..Scared of a little card,” I singsonged. Wayne fell at me, his two fists hammering down on my nose, I gave him a good one in the stomach and then I tried for his head.” (pg. 69 l.800-804) Since Wayne told on Miss. Ferenczi, Tommy made sure that Wayne would pay for what he did to her. This is another way of how he defended the teacher. Wayne had told on Miss. Ferenczi and had just taken the only thing that had changed his life and could have made up for living in such a small …show more content…

He kissed his dog and his mom. When he was about to go do his chores, he stopped, “I ran into the living room, pulled out a dictionary next to the TV stand, and opened it to the Gs. After five minutes, I found it. Gryphon: “variant of griffin.” Griffin: “ a fabulous beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.” (pg. 59 l.488-494) It shows why Tommy defends Miss. Ferenczi when you read this. He defends Miss. Ferenczi because she is different. The reason he searched up gryphon was because Miss. Ferenczi had told them a really cool story in the morning and he wanted to search if the gryphon was actually true. That is why he defended her. She told him and the class interesting stories that he had never heard

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