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Part 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Piranesi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human vs. Inhuman Worlds
Science and the Pursuit of Knowledge
Memory and Identity
Friendship, Betrayal, and Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
In an entry dated 26 November 2018, Piranesi (or Matthew) describes the disappearance of Val Ketterley. Much mystery surrounds it given the simultaneous reappearance of Matthew Rose Sorensen. An officer, Jamie Askill, speculates that Ketterley, like his mentor Arne-Sayles, kidnapped Sorensen to manufacture evidence for other worlds. Then, when the police caught on to him, he killed himself and set Sorensen free. Askill questions Piranesi/Matthew about this, but Piranesi/Matthew provides unsatisfying answers, describing how he was trapped in a House with many rooms. Askill interprets this as evidence of a mental breakdown, as does Piranesi/Matthew’s family. Changing topics, they discuss Raphael, both applauding her for her work. Piranesi/Matthew does not dispute Askill’s claim that Raphael found him at the seashore.
Back in the normal world, Matthew’s experience is interpreted by both family and investigators as a metaphor for a mental breakdown. From their perspective, his story is simply too preposterous to be interpreted literally. Such is the flattening power of modern rationality, the kind abhorred by Laurence Arne-Sayles. Magic is explained away, made psychological, a figment of one’s imagination.
Themes
Matthew’s family ask Piranesi/Matthew where he has been. However, they don’t believe his story about the House, interpreting it as a description of a mental breakdown. They believe they have Matthew back, which they find reassuring. Piranesi/Matthew no longer looks like Piranesi, as he now wears Matthew’s old clothes (which there are many of). However, the rest of Matthew’s possessions do not interest him. The Piranesi in him, who is always there, rejects the need for so many things. Matthew is there too, but only “hints and shadows,” pieced together from clues given by the journals, his possessions, and his family. Piranesi/Matthew remembers how the world works, but Piranesi objects to many things in it, like money.
This passage highlights Piranesi/Matthew’s struggle to adjust to his new world. Though he has learned to operate within it, many of its underlying principles do not make sense to him. His time in House has reset him to a state of near child-like innocence, rendering concepts like “money” or “clothing” all but meaningless. This is a direct product of his split identity, of co-existing in two different worlds at once; he can never feel fully at home.
Themes
Piranesi/Matthew decides to write a book on Laurence Arne-Sayles. This is something Matthew would do, plus no one knows Arne-Sayles like he does. Raphael has taught Piranesi/Matthew how to travel to the labyrinth by himself. A week prior, he met James Ritter to take him back to the labyrinth. James cried with happiness upon arrival and begged Piranesi/Matthew to stay. Piranesi refused, pointing out that James cannot survive by himself. However, Piranesi promised to take him any time he wants to.
Despite Matthew’s struggles in the new world, there are silver linings to his new existence. Chief among them is Piranesi/Matthew’s ability to return to House, either alone, or in the company of Raphael or James Ritter. Both of them feel the same way as Piranesi does about the House, providing affirmation of his experience.
Themes
Piranesi/Matthew has placed Ketterley’s body in a lower hall where it can be washed by the tides and eaten by fish. Currently, snakes live intertwined in his limbs. Piranesi/Matthew estimates his bones will be clean and white in six months, at which time he will move him next to his colleagues. A day later, Piranesi/Matthew reflects on how he thought statues would be irrelevant in the new world. They are not. Confronted by a situation he does not understand, Piranesi/Matthew looks to statues for guidance.
Gradually, Piranesi/Matthew begins to find ways to incorporate his two worlds: that of the House, and that of Statues, for instance, prove surprisingly useful to Piranesi: in confusing situations, Piranesi looks to them for clarity. In this way, the world of the House and the real world begin to converge.
Themes
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When thinking of Ketterley, Piranesi/Matthew thinks of a statue of a knight kneeling beside a broken sword and broken sphere. He thought he could break the sphere but found instead that both broke. Still, he refuses to believe the sphere is broken and worthless. When thinking of Arne-Sayles, he pictures the statue of a fat pope on a throne. His weight threatens to break it, but the pope is pleased by his repulsiveness. Raphael is represented by two statues: one of a protector queen, the other of an S figure carrying a lantern alone through the darkness. Piranesi/Matthew knows and loves Raphael more than anyone else on earth. She returns to the labyrinth often for the peace and quiet. Sometimes they go together.
Ketterley’s statue embodies the Other’s struggle to exploit the secrets of the House, and how it destroyed him in the process; it is metaphor for the self-destructive potential of hubris. Arne-Sayles’ statue represents his perverse, twisted relationship with power, loving it purely for its own sake. Finally, Raphael’s statues represent her duality to Piranesi, being both a protector and a seeker.
Themes
Piranesi/Matthew says that the tides and halls are always in his mind. When the world becomes too much, he thinks of a vestibule and hall and travels there in his mind. The night before Piranesi/Matthew dreamt of hugging the gorilla statue, telling it how happy he is to be home. Upon waking, he realizes he is not “home,” but “here.” Piranesi walks to meet Raphael. It begins to snow, and the cars make a noise which reminds him of the tides. He feels calm. Walking through a park, Piranesi/Matthew sees several people who resemble statues he knows. Looking at paper lanterns hanging from the wires of a courtyard, he concludes: “The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.”
While he may does not fully feel at “home” yet, Piranesi has nonetheless begun to recognize the potential for beauty in his new world. Where once he employed his saying—“the Beauty of the House…”—exclusively in reference to the House, here he uses it in reference to the world around him. In short, Piranesi has begun to see in his new life what he used in the House.
Themes
