In passing over that threshold, Gina was entering her new world, the one that represented her new home, the one that would so totally transform her life: she was like a child being born, or a dying man exhaling his last breath.
-- Narrator (2 (The Bishop Matula Academy))

Importance: In this passage, the narrator describes how Gina experiences a significant transformation — a kind of rebirth — after she enters the Matula. At this point of the novel, Gina does not yet know how much the Matula will alter her. The narrator describes her as both a child and a “dying man” (20) and, in doing so, foreshadows the liminal position — between childhood and adulthood — that Gina inhabits throughout the novel, as well as the ways in which her entry into the Matula marks the beginning of the end of her childhood. Ironically, her immaturity is characterized by the ways in which she considers herself more adult than the people...