Howl's Moving Castle Summary: Plot, Characters and Themes
What Howl's Moving Castle is about
Howl's Moving Castle is a fantasy novel by the British author Diana Wynne Jones. It was first published in 1986 by Greenwillow Books of New York. It is the first book in the Howl series, which continues with Castle in the Air (1990) and House of Many Ways (2008).
The story is set in Ingary, a magical kingdom where fairytale rules are simply how life works. One of those rules says that the eldest of three children will never be successful. Sophie Hatter is eighteen and the eldest of three sisters in the town of Market Chipping. She has resigned herself to a dull future running the family hat shop. What she does not know is that she can talk life into objects.
Then the powerful Witch of the Waste decides Sophie is a threat and turns her into an old woman. Sophie leaves the shop and finds work as a cleaning lady for Howl, a wizard with a notorious reputation. The door of his castle is a portal. It opens onto four places: Market Chipping, the seaside city of Porthaven, the royal capital of Kingsbury and Howl's boyhood home in modern-day Wales.
Sophie strikes a bargain with Howl's fire demon, Calcifer. If she can break the contract between Calcifer and Howl, Calcifer will return her to her real age. The catch is that the contract forbids either of them from revealing its main clause. Sophie has to work it out alone.
Meanwhile the King's younger brother, Prince Justin, has gone missing while searching for Wizard Suliman. The King orders Howl to find them both and to kill the Witch of the Waste. Howl has his own reasons for keeping well away from her.
The main characters
Sophie Hatter is the heart of the book. She begins as someone who accepts the small life she has been told to expect. Being cursed into old age pushes her out of the shop and into Howl's household, where she starts to take charge.
Howl is self-absorbed and fickle but good-natured underneath. He spreads malicious rumours about himself so that people leave him alone and he can dodge work and responsibility. He chases one love interest after another and spends hours in the bathroom every day making himself handsome. In Wales he was known as Howell Jenkins. The Witch of the Waste is a jilted former lover, and she has laid a dark curse on him.
Calcifer is the fire demon who powers the castle. He is tied to Howl by a contract he cannot explain, which makes him Sophie's reluctant partner in solving the mystery.
Michael Fisher is Howl's apprentice. He runs most of the day-to-day business while his master is off courting.
The Witch of the Waste is the powerful villain who curses Sophie and hunts Howl.
Miss Angorian is Howl's current love interest. Prince Justin and Wizard Suliman are the two missing men Howl is ordered to find.
The themes
Identity. Ingary runs on fairytale logic, and Sophie believes the rule that marks her as the eldest who will fail. The curse changes her outside, yet it is in her old body that she finds her nerve. Howl also hides behind a false image, building a frightening reputation to avoid what is asked of him. Both characters wear disguises of a kind.
Love. Howl's romances are many and short. Michael says that the day Howl stops primping in the bathroom is the day he will believe Howl is truly in love. That simple test becomes important later in the book.
Freedom. Much of the plot turns on binding agreements. Sophie is trapped by a curse and by the role she was born into. Calcifer and Howl are tied by a contract they cannot speak about. Breaking these bonds drives the story forward.
How it ends (spoilers)
Stop here if you want to read the book fresh.
Believing the Witch has taken Miss Angorian, Sophie goes to rescue her and is captured. Howl arrives to save her unshaven and a mess, which proves Michael's test and shows that he loves Sophie. He kills the Witch and reveals that Miss Angorian was really the Witch's fire demon in disguise. The demon had taken control of the Witch and was trying to build a "perfect human" by fusing Suliman and Justin, finished off with Howl's head.
Back at the castle, Miss Angorian seizes Calcifer to capture Howl's heart. This was the secret contract. Howl had given his heart to Calcifer, which kept the demon alive, and in return Calcifer gave Howl his magic. Sophie uses her gift for bringing things to life to free Calcifer and break the contract. With his heart restored, Howl destroys the demon and frees Suliman and Justin. Calcifer lifts Sophie's spell as promised.
It turns out Howl had spotted the curse early and tried to remove it in secret. When that failed, he decided Sophie simply enjoyed "being in disguise". Calcifer chooses to come back and stay with Howl. When Howl suggests they live happily ever after, he and Sophie admit they love each other.
Why it still matters
The book was a runner-up for the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Twenty years after publication it won the Phoenix Award. In 2004 Studio Ghibli adapted it into an animated film of the same name, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
It is also the Diana Wynne Jones book most widely held in participating libraries, with its sequel Castle in the Air next. The idea came from a boy at a school she visited, who asked her to write a book called The Moving Castle. She thanked him warmly but lost the note of his name.
It suits readers who like fantasy that plays with fairytale rules, and anyone who knows the Ghibli film and wants the original story with its Welsh thread and its own ending.
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