Gryphon: THe Purpose of Intertwining the Conventional and the Unconventional

Gryphon, by Charles Baxter, is a short story about a mysterious substitute teacher, named Miss Ferenczi, written in the perspective of a fourth grader. The reason why I say Miss Ferenczi is mysterious is because of the many unconventional things she says. There are many examples throughout the story where Miss Ferenczi says very fascinating things that make the fourth graders question the accuracy of her statements, but she also intertwines conventional statements, and I think there is a purpose behind this.

During the arithmetic lesson, Miss Ferenczi makes a boy named John Wazny recite the six-times tables. However, even though John makes a mistake by saying six times eleven is sixty-eight, Miss Ferenczi says, “Well now. That was very good.” (Miss Ferenczi 41) and tries to move on with the lesson. The kids stop her and ask her why she didn’t correct John for his mistake, and she tells the children that six times eleven can equal sixty-eight in higher level mathematics, even though six times eleven is obviously sixty six. The kids find this hard to take in and they continue to question Miss Ferenczi, but Miss Ferenczi waves off their questions by telling them to consider it as a “substitute fact” and to think whatever they like.

Another example where Miss Ferenczi mixes conventional and unconventional facts is when she talks about an imaginary animal that she had seen in Cairo called a Gryphon. A Gryphon is a majestic creature that is half-bird, half-lion. Again in this situation Miss Ferenczi intertwines conventional and unconventional facts. A lion and a bird are both creatures that exist in our world, but Miss Ferenczi mixes them together to create something imaginary.

Lastly, another place where conventional and unconventional things are put together are at the end of the short story. At the end Miss Ferenczi tells the kids’ their fortunes with a set of cards that she brings into class. One by one she goes through the kids and tells them their fortunes, but when she gets to Wayne, she tells him that he will die soon. This causes her to get fired and the story draws to a close. However, the very last paragraph of the story is a large section containing factual information about insects, which contrasts heavily from the teaching style that Miss Ferenczi uses.

There were two main purposes of intertwining conventional and unconventional facts. The first was to emphasize that there aren’t that many “right” answers in our world. Everything can be viewed in multiple points of view and by intertwining conventional and unconventional facts; Miss Ferenczi expands the children’s wonder and imagination. The children’s creativity is forced to grow and they use their creativity to come up with their own answers that they believe is right.

The second purpose of intertwining conventional and unconventional facts was to make us wonder which facts were conventional and which facts are unconventional. By mixing the two types of facts together throughout the whole story, we as readers begin to wonder if even the conventional facts are true and this process of questioning was another purpose of intertwining the two types of facts.