Charles Baxter's Gryphon, Tommy Defends Mrs. Ferenczi

In Charles Baxter’s short story “Gryphon” Tommy defends Mrs. Ferenczi, for two main reasons. First, she’s different than everyone else in five oaks; she makes things up about weird and interesting stories that aren't necessarily true. Tommy has never met anyone like her and enjoys having her around, and as the story unfolds, we see that the more intense and odd Mrs. Freneczi becomes, the greater lengths Tommy goes to defend her. (This is the second part of the prompt, which you haven’t addressed. If you added a bit more information from the text along these lines, your essay would be complete. Mrs. Ferenczi is different than everybody else for many reasons, like being an out of towner, making odd clothing selections, and having an accent. She introduces herself by telling a story about her royal and foreign background, “...her grandfather had been a Hungarian prince; her mother had been born in some place called Flanders...” (page 45, line 106-108). She dressed weirdly, “She was

Tommy is bored by his small town with its “ordinary lesson, complete with vocabulary and drills,” at school (p. 46, l. 137), and his mom not listening about his day, “Did you hear me?...You have chores to do.” (p. 58, l. 477-479) Everyone knows everyone else in Five Oaks. In comes Mrs. Ferenczi talking about things he and his classmates had never heard of before. Things like a half bird-half lion called a Sryphon, Saturn and its mysterious clouds, and sick dogs not drinking from rivers but waiting for rain all in one lesson (p. 55-56, l. 393-403). Ideas never stop coming and they branch out from each other before they are properly explained. Most of the kids feel she lies, but Tommy joins her in …. (Write here about how Tommy begins to make up stories like Mrs. F.) Think of the progression: looks-up “Gryphon” in the dictionary….makes-up “Humpster “ story….”sees” unusual trees on the bus ride home….yells at & fights