In Gryphon, describe three ways Baxter intertwines the conventional and unconventional and for what purpose this interplay is used.

In the story, “Gryphon”, Charles Baxter wrote it in a way to expand the imagination of the readers. Not only does it include unconventional and conventional facts, but puts them in ways where readers can understand why he did so. The story starts off with Mrs. Ferenzi coming in as a substitute teacher. The first things the students realize are the marionette lines on her face. It wasn’t normal for people to have marionette lines on their faces. This could be both conventional and unconventional. Unconventional because most people do not have it and usually is shown on puppets. But, it is also conventional because Charles Baxter actually had a teacher who had marionette lines. The marionette lines on the teacher reminded the protagonist, Tommy, of Pinocchio. He also could have been reminded of Pinocchio because he too is a puppet and not real. There was something unreal about Ms. Ferenzi, as if she belonged in another world. Her thoughts and views of certain things were different than most people viewed them. Baxter did a successful job at intertwining the unconventional when it came to the students doing arithmetic. A student named John Wazny was up for doing the tables of six and answered six times eleven is sixty-eight. When a student catches his mistake she tells the teacher, but Ms. Ferenzi replies, “Yes. So it is. But, and I know some people will not entirely agree with me, at some times it is sixty-eight” (41, Gryphon). This was an example of “substitute facts”, which are either simply wrong incorrect. But, they can also be myths or imaginations. She says the answer is sixty-eight because she likes to expose the facts, which can be true and false, to the kids just to expand their sense of wonder. Not only does it give the kids to view things in different ways, but also help them be a little more creative. Lastly, when Ms. Ferenzi was teaching the class about Egypt, she adds in how she saw an actual Gryphon. But, a gryphon is known to be an imaginative creature or practically a myth. Although she knows that the gryphon is not real, she says she saw it because she wants the kids to be exposed to exotic facts and possibilities. Overall, all Ms. Ferenzi was trying to do was expand the kids imagination, by mixing a little bit of truth and false statements in her teachings.