Sophie’s walking stick represents Sophie’s coming of age process, particularly as she develops self-confidence. When Sophie first finds her stick, she’s recently been turned into an elderly woman and needs the stick for mobility reasons. The stick is, at this point, something that props Sophie up when she’s weaker than usual—and when she’s at a low spot emotionally as well, as she believes she’s destined to fail due to being the eldest of three children. However, unbeknownst to Sophie, she has the power to “talk life” into things, and she talks life into her stick over the course of the novel. This eventually turns it into what Mrs. Pentstemmon says is some approximation of a magic wand: it’s a magical, almost sentient thing in its own right. By this point in the novel, Sophie accepts that she’s powerful and has the ability to talk life into things, such as her stick, which now symbolizes her growing self-confidence. During the novel’s final battle between Sophie, Howl, and Miss Angorian, Sophie fully comes into her own and fully accepts her own power—and she discovers that she can be successful, if only she thinks about what she’s doing. And when Howl causes the stick to vanish during the battle (and when Sophie then reverts to her teenage self), it symbolizes that Sophie has come of age and learned to accept that she’s powerful, competent, and can stand on her own two feet, without a magic wand or a walking stick.
Sophie’s Walking Stick Quotes in Howl’s Moving Castle
She had said Sophie was a witch. Oddly enough, Sophie accepted this without any trouble at all. That explained the popularity of certain hats, she thought. It explained Jane Farrier’s Count Whatsit. It possibly explained the jealousy of the Witch of the Waste. It was as if Sophie had always known this. But she had thought it was not proper to have a magic gift because she was the eldest of three.
Sophie raised her stick, slowly and gently. This time she thought for an instant before she acted. “Stick,” she muttered. “Beat Miss Angorian, but don’t hurt anyone else.” Then she swung the stick and hit Miss Angorian’s tight knuckles the biggest crack she could.
Miss Angorian let out a squealing hiss like a wet log burning and dropped Calcifer. Poor Calcifer rolled helplessly on the floor, flaming sideways across the flagstones and roaring huskily with terror. Miss Angorian raised a foot to stamp on him. Sophie had to let go of her stick and dive to rescue Calcifer. Her stick, to her surprise, hit Miss Angorian again on its own, and again, and again. But of course it would! Sophie thought. She had talked life into that stick.
He stood up in a hurry. He held out one hand and spoke a sentence of those words that lost themselves in claps of thunder. Plaster fell from the ceiling. Everything trembled. But the stick vanished and Howl stepped back with a small, hard, black thing in his hand.
Sophie’s Walking Stick Symbol Timeline in Howl’s Moving Castle
