Wisdom

The author uses Areum's experience living with progeria in order to explore both the wisdom of youth and old age. Though Areum is only 16 in the narrative present, his body is aging at a rapid pace. His disease makes his body function and appear like an old man, while his mind continues to function like a teenager. Therefore, Areum's character acts as a bridge between the contrasting realms of experience of the old and the young. At the start of Chapter 2, Areum says that everyone believes it is a miracle when he turns 16, because "not very many people in my situation have lived past their sixteenth birthday" (30). Despite this medical surprise, Areum goes on to say, "But I believe that the larger miracle exists in the ordinary, in the living of an ordinary life and dying at an ordinary age . . . I'm no miracle" (31). Areum's tone and...