Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Howl’s Moving Castle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Destiny vs. Free Will
Appearances and Assumptions
Family
Magic and Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
While Sophie and the dog-man try to stay out of the way, Howl and Michael measure the castle, chalk a star on the floor, and repaint the four-sided doorknob (except for the black side). Sophie suggests they sell flowers in the Market Chipping shop. Soon after, Howl calls for Michael to bring him a silver shovel—it’s time to move Calcifer. Howl and Calcifer remind each other that either of them could die doing this, but Howl insists they have no choice. After sprinkling a powder onto the shovel, Howl carefully scoops Calcifer up and walks into the chalked star. Sophie can see that Calcifer is just a face—but he’s attached to a black lump of something. As smoke fills the room, Howl struggles to not cough and keep the shovel steady. Calcifer looks terrified.
Again, giving Sophie the final say as to what happens with the Market Chipping shop shows that Howl truly cares for Sophie. He wants her to be happy and have a voice in what her life looks like—even in a stressful situation like this. And finally, Sophie gets a good look at Calcifer. That he’s attached to the black lump is interesting, as it seems likely that it’s the lump that keeps Calcifer tied to the fireplace. Figuring out what the lump is, then, becomes Sophie’s goal—if she can figure out what to do with it, she can break the contract.
Themes
When Howl reaches the middle of the star, he turns in a full circle. The whole room seems to turn with him, and Sophie feels just as panicky as Calcifer looks. Then, Howl returns to the fireplace and settles Calcifer back among the logs. As the smoke settles, Sophie sees the outline of the parlor of her childhood home, which the castle seems to wiggle into. Howl turns the doorknob yellow-down and opens it onto Market Chipping. With the orange side down, the door opens from an empty mansion—Calcifer says Howl told him to find a nice house. The purple side, the moving castle side, opens onto a lush field of flowers. Sophie moves forward to look, but Howl tells her to wait until tomorrow; this is the edge of the Waste.
Getting this display of Howl and Calcifer’s magical powers highlights for Sophie that Howl isn’t joking around; he truly is a powerful wizard. Now that he's moved the castle to Market Chipping, however, things are going to get interesting for Sophie. She left Market Chipping to essentially figure out who she was as an old person—and now she’s back home again. But since Howl is the one living in the house and running the shop, home is no longer the same. Sophie, though, isn’t the same either: she knows now that she’s magical and has at least some power to dictate the course of her life.
Themes
Howl goes to bed immediately after praising Calcifer, while Michael and the dog-man fall asleep in a chair. Sophie feels odd—she’s back in her childhood home, and seeing Calcifer’s full shape sparks something in her memory. She asks him if he was ever a falling star. Calcifer says he was; Howl caught him. (He can talk about this because Sophie asked, but his contract forbids him from offering up this information.) Because he was so terrified of dying, he accepted Howl’s contract, which would keep Calcifer alive. He notes that Howl felt sorry for him, and Sophie adds that the same thing happened to Michael. Hearing his name, Michael jerks awake and says he doesn’t feel safe on the edge of the Waste. Calcifer quips that no one’s safe in a wizard’s house.
Sophie is gradually putting together the pieces and figuring out what Calcifer and Howl’s contract entails. The revelation that Calcifer was once a falling star helps Sophie understand why Calcifer accepted the contract with Howl in the first place: she remembers how frightened the falling star she and Michael saw looked. So Calcifer is, on some level, very motivated by a fear of dying. This may also explain why he’s so willing to help Howl thwart the Witch, as he’ll suffer if the Witch catches Howl.
Themes
The next morning, Howl is out with the door set to black-side down—and none of the doors will open for Sophie. Annoyed (she wants to see the flowers), Sophie scrubs the chalk marks off the floor. Howl returns while she’s scrubbing, still in a black suit but with white-blond hair. It reminds Sophie of the curse. Picking up the skull, Howl tells “Yorick” that there were mermaids, so “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.” Luckily, he says, he’s very dishonest, even though his cold won’t go away. Sophie exchanges a look with the dog-man, suggests he go back to Lettie, and then asks Howl how Miss Angorian is going. He says it’s awful; she has “a heart like a boiled stone.”
Howl drops several references to Shakespeare in this passage, which makes sense given his upbringing and the education he received in contemporary Wales. Despite Howl’s insistence that the curse isn’t coming true, Sophie perceives that it is—especially with Howl’s hair looking so fair these days. As Howl describes Miss Angorian’s heart, his word choice stands out. Rather than being “heartless,” like he is, she essentially has a small, shriveled heart. In this regard, then, they’re entirely different.
Themes
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After breakfast, Howl and Michael clean out the broom cupboard and knock down the back wall so it opens into the former hat shop. Howl leads Sophie through the familiar passageway into the shop, which is now tiled in black and white. She says nothing when she realizes she’s supposed to admire it. On the front of the shop, Howl has painted “H. Jenkins Fresh Flowers Daily.” Then, Howl leads Sophie into the familiar backyard, which is half the size she remembers (the castle’s yard takes up half). Sophie is conflicted: she can see her bedroom window but doesn’t think she can get there, and she realizes Howl’s window, which she can also see, doesn’t look onto the yard. Howl is clearly upset; he expected Sophie to appreciate his handiwork.
This tour is very disconcerting for Sophie, since nothing about her childhood home has changed—except for everything. Specifically, the fact that she can’t access her childhood bedroom highlights that Sophie is coming of age; she can’t symbolically return to her childhood. Meanwhile, noting that Howl’s window looks out on Megan’s backyard highlights how connected he still is to his biological family, even as his physical location has changed. But still, Sophie and Howl fail to connect more deeply with each other, since Sophie’s reaction isn’t what Howl was hoping for—though this does reflect Howl’s self-absorption.
Themes
Howl leads Sophie back inside and then opens the purple door. The castle stops and Sophie climbs out onto a lane that winds between bushes of flowers. This is clearly a magical place, and Sophie is delighted. Howl explains that they can cut flowers every morning and sell them in Market Chipping. He points out the Waste and warns Sophie to not get too close to it and the Witch. Then, he explains that Wizard Suliman started this garden a year ago, apparently to try to drive the Witch out of the Waste by making the Waste bloom. It offended the Witch, as she thinks of herself as the one “blooming orchid” in the Waste.
It's another sign that Sophie is coming of age and is beginning to trust herself when she recognizes this landscape as a magical place. Being able to recognize magic is a skill the novel attributes to experienced magical people, such as the Witch and Mrs. Fairfax. That Wizard Suliman started the garden to drive the Witch away makes the Witch look even more cold and evil, if she’d run from something so delightful as a beautiful garden of flowers.
Themes
Sophie mentions that Mrs. Pentstemmon called Suliman a different name and said he came from the same place Howl did. Howl says he never knew Suliman, but he thought the flowers were a good idea and met the Witch when he came to check them out after Suliman disappeared. The castle is here now because it’s the last thing the Witch would expect. But when Sophie asks if Howl is trying to find Prince Justin, Howl “slither[s]” away to yell at Michael.
It humanizes Howl a bit when he says that he agrees that the flowers are a good idea. Unlike the Witch, who is cruel, selfish, unfeeling, and apparently can’t stand other blooming things, Howl is willing to move his castle to the middle of a massive magical garden. He may insist this is just for practical reasons, but Sophie picks up on the possibility that Howl might be a better person than she thinks he is.
Themes
