Genre
fantasy
Setting and Context
an alternate reality, alternate world, the House
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: Piranesi;
Point of view: first person
Tone and Mood
Nightmarish, tense, contemplative
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Piranesi; Antagonist: the Other, the Prophet
Major Conflict
The novel introduces a man living in a House in a seemingly dystopic world where there are only two surviving people. Piranesi is visited by the man whom he calls the Other and whom he helps the search for the sacred Knowledge. As the novel progresses, it is clear that something else is at play, something sinister and man-made instead of a force of nature.
Climax
Piranesi finally puts the pieces together and realises that he is Matthew Rose Sorensen and that he was tricked into this alternate world by the Other, who is a psychologist and academic called Valentine Ketterley. They have a confrontation just before a tide is about to hit the House, and the Other gets swept away by the water and dies, while Piranesi and 16/Sarah Raphael hide in one of the statues.
Foreshadowing
"On the lid was a picture of an octopus in a paler shade of gray and some orange writing. The writing said: AQUARIUM."
-As the novel progresses there are bits and pieces that foreshadow that the House isn't the last place of life and that there is something else at hand, something the Other knows, but Piranesi is blissfully unaware of.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The title itself is an allusion to the Italian architect and artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
Imagery
Visual and auditory imagery of the Wind:
"About the middle of the First Month a Wind came up from the South. It blew for days without ceasing and though I tried hard not to complain about it, I found it something of a trial. It blew stinging Snow into the Halls. It blew on me at night in my bed in the Third Northern Hall. It howled in the Vestibules, catching up handfuls of loose snow and making them into little ghosts."
Paradox
"...consolatory presence of the Dead..."
-Part 2: The Other
Parallelism
So this, as far as I can tell, is what the birds told me. A message from afar. Obscure Writing. Innocence eroded."
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The Other-the name given to the man who visits Piranesi, for the sole reason because he believes he is the only other surviving person on the Earth.
Personification
"It is my belief that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for all practical purposes identical) wishes and Inhabitant for Itself to be a witness to its Beauty and the recipient of its Mercies."
