Exploration and Curiosity

The novel’s story and structure directly confront ideas of exploration and knowledge, as the novel recognize the universality of human curiosity. As the novel establishes its most basic setting and premise, ideas of exploration and curiosity immediately become relevant, as both Piranesi and the reader wish to understand the labyrinth. At the beginning of the novel, the labyrinth itself is the only thing in—the world of the story—of which Piranesi and the reader have any knowledge. One of the reasons that Piranesi values the Other’s friendship is because he is a “person devoted to the life of the intellect. He is a scientist like me” (8). As the Piranesi and the reader eventually discover, the Other’s methods of—and motivations for—exploration are much more sinister than Piranesi’s pure curiosity. Regardless, these characters are still emblematic of the universal...