Howl’s Moving Castle

by

Diana Wynne Jones

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Appearances and Assumptions Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Destiny vs. Free Will Theme Icon
Appearances and Assumptions Theme Icon
Family Theme Icon
Magic and Coming of Age Theme Icon
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.
Appearances and Assumptions Theme Icon

In Howl’s Moving Castle, few things are as they seem. Old people look young, young people look old, kings and princes look unassuming, and unlikely heroes appear evil. By presenting so many people, non-human beings, and objects that defy all expectations, the novel highlights the problems that come with prejudging someone. In some cases, a person’s inclination to make assumptions simply reflects their upbringing. For instance, Sophie, who’s from Market Chipping, has been raised to believe that Wizard Howl is evil—so evil that he literally eats girls’ hearts and steals their souls. However, she learns later that Howl isn’t at all evil, and that the rumors are ones that he allowed to spread specifically in Market Chipping to make himself look bad (he doesn’t want to attract too much attention for looking good). It takes Sophie almost a month, however, to not only believe that Howl isn’t evil, but also to be able to voice to others that he’s kind and compassionate. In other cases, people’s assumptions reflect their fears or their selfishness. Sophie is terrified of the scarecrow that continues to call at the moving castle, believing it’s evil, and it’s only when she’s willing to stop and think more critically about it that she learns the scarecrow contains part of the missing Wizard Suliman and is on the side of good. Similarly, it takes Howl about a week to realize that the dog Sophie takes in isn’t actually a dog—he’s a man cursed to take a dog’s form. This is something Howl would’ve noticed immediately, other characters insist, had he not been so vain and caught up in his own world. Being able to look critically at someone and notice what they’re hiding, the novel suggests, not only makes one a better person—it’s the only way one can provide other people the help they actually need.

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Appearances and Assumptions ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Appearances and Assumptions appears in each chapter of Howl’s Moving Castle. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Appearances and Assumptions Quotes in Howl’s Moving Castle

Below you will find the important quotes in Howl’s Moving Castle related to the theme of Appearances and Assumptions.
Chapter Two Quotes

“I never knew!”

“Well, it wasn’t much good going on about it when you were so busy backing Mother up about me making my fortune,” Martha said. “You thought Mother meant it. I did too, until Father died and I saw she was just trying to get rid of us—putting Lettie where she was bound to meet a lot of men and get married off, and sending me as far away as she could! I was so angry I thought, Why not? And I spoke to Lettie and she was just as angry and we fixed it up. We’re fine now.”

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Martha Hatter (speaker), Lettie Hatter, Fanny
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Three Quotes

Perhaps Howl kept him in abject servility. But Michael did not look servile. He was a tall, dark boy with a pleasant, open sort of face, and he was most respectably dressed. In fact, if Sophie had not seen him at that moment carefully pouring green fluid out of a crooked flask onto black powder in a bent glass jar, she would have taken him for the son of a prosperous farmer. How odd!

Still, things were bound to be odd where wizards were concerned, Sophie thought.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter, Wizard Howl, Michael, Martha Hatter, Mrs. Fairfax
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’m fastened to this hearth and I can’t stir so much as a foot away. I’m forced to do most of the magic around here. I have to maintain the castle and keep it moving and do all the special effects that scare people off, as well as anything else Howl wants. Howl’s quite heartless, you know.”

Sophie did not need telling that Howl was heartless. On the other hand, the demon was probably quite as wicked.

Related Characters: Calcifer (speaker), Sophie Hatter, Wizard Howl, Michael
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Five Quotes

It was odd. As a girl, Sophie would have shriveled with embarrassment at the way she was behaving. As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that a great relief.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter, Wizard Howl, Michael
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Seven Quotes

“And my heart—but you wouldn’t understand, you silly young demon!” Sophie panted. “You haven’t got a heart.”

“Yes I have,” Calcifer said, as proudly as he had revealed his arm. “Down in the glowing part under the logs. And don’t call me young. I’m a good million years older than you are!”

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Calcifer (speaker), Wizard Howl
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:

“Dear Sophie, do please tell me how you bully a fire demon into being that obliging. I’d dearly love to know!”

“I didn’t bully him,” said Sophie. “It gave me a turn and he was sorry for me.”

“It gave her a turn and Calcifer was sorry for her,” Howl repeated. “My good Sophie, Calcifer is never sorry for anyone.”

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Wizard Howl (speaker), Calcifer
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Nine Quotes

“He told me his troubles and dripped on me. Didn’t you?” said Calcifer. “It didn’t seem to occur to him that I might have troubles as well.”

“I don’t think you have. You just grumble a lot,” Michael said. “You were quite nice to me that morning, and I think Howl was impressed. But you know how he is. He didn’t tell me I could stay. He just didn’t tell me to go.”

Related Characters: Calcifer (speaker), Michael (speaker), Sophie Hatter, Wizard Howl
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Ten Quotes

There was a cart horse outside. The young fellow of fifty who was leading it wondered if Mrs. Witch had something which might stop it casting shoes all the time.

“I’ll see,” said Sophie. She hobbled over to the grate. “What shall I do?” she whispered.

“Yellow powder, fourth jar along on the second shelf,” Calcifer whispered back. “Those spells are mostly belief. Don’t look uncertain when you give it to him.”

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Calcifer (speaker), Wizard Howl, Michael
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eleven Quotes

“Are you trying to bring me down to your level? You had all that education, and you don’t even get a decent job, you just hang around, wasting all that time at college, wasting all those sacrifices other people made, wasting your money…”

[…] Sophie began to understand how Howl had acquired the habit of slithering out. Megan was the kind of person who made you want to back quietly out of the nearest door. […]

“… never doing an honest day’s work, never getting a job I could be proud of, bringing shame on me and Gareth, coming here and spoiling Mari rotten,” Megan ground on remorselessly.

Related Characters: Megan Parry (speaker), Sophie Hatter, Wizard Howl, Michael, Mari Parry
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twelve Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter, The Witch of the Waste, Mrs. Pentstemmon, Jane Farrier
Related Symbols: Sophie’s Walking Stick
Page Number: 238-239
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Thirteen Quotes

True, he sat with one leg thrust out in a kingly sort of manner, and he was handsome in a plump, slightly vague way, but to Sophie he seemed quite youthful and just a touch too proud of being a king. She felt he ought, with that face, to have been more unsure of himself.

[…]

And Sophie was suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that she was standing talking to the King. It was, she thought dizzily, as if the man sitting there and the huge, important thing which was kingship were two separate things that just happened to occupy the same chair. And she found that she had forgotten every word of the careful, delicate things Howl had told her to say.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter, Wizard Howl, The King
Page Number: 242-243
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Seventeen Quotes

“I was terrified of him. I was terrified anyway, because when you fall you know you’re going to die. I’d have done anything rather than die. When Howl offered to keep me alive the way humans stay alive, I suggested a contract on the spot. Neither of us knew what we were getting into. I was grateful, and Howl only offered because he was sorry for me.”

“Just like Michael,” said Sophie.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Calcifer (speaker), Wizard Howl, Michael
Page Number: 322-323
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eighteen Quotes

“And don’t you dare tell Howl she was here!” she said unreasonably to Calcifer. “I bet she came to see Howl. The rest was just a pack of lies. Wizard Suliman was settled here, years ago. He probably came to get away from her beastly throbbing voice!”

Calcifer chuckled. “I’ve never seen anyone got rid of so fast!” he said.

This made Sophie feel both unkind and guilty. After all, she herself had walked into the castle in much the same way, and she had been twice as nosy as Miss Angorian.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Calcifer (speaker), Wizard Howl, Miss Angorian, Wizard Suliman/Benjamin Sullivan
Page Number: 349
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Nineteen Quotes

“Sophie,” he said, “What do you mean by not telling me about this? This dog is a man! And he’s in a terrible state!”

[…]

“You could have noticed for yourself,” she said, glaring back, daring Howl to do his worst with green slime. “Anyway, the dog didn’t want—”

Howl was too angry to listen. He jumped up and hauled the dog across the tiles. “And so I would have done, if I hadn’t had things on my mind,” he said.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Wizard Howl (speaker), The Dog-Man/Percival
Page Number: 353-354
Explanation and Analysis:

“What’s wrong with it?” said Percival. “Why didn’t you want it?”

Related Characters: The Dog-Man/Percival (speaker), Sophie Hatter
Page Number: 366
Explanation and Analysis:

“But do you honestly think I don’t know my own business well enough to spot a strong spell like that when I see it? I had several goes at taking it off you when you weren’t looking. But nothing seems to work. I took you to Mrs. Pentstemmon, hoping she could do something, but she evidently couldn’t. I came to the conclusion that you liked being in disguise.”

Disguise!” Sophie yelled.

Howl laughed at her. “It must be, since you’re doing it yourself,” he said.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Wizard Howl (speaker), Mrs. Pentstemmon
Page Number: 353-354
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty Quotes

“Do listen. He’s not wicked at all!” There was a bit of a fizz from the grate at this, where Calcifer was watching with some interest. “He isn’t!” Sophie said, to Calcifer as much as to Fanny. “In all the time I’ve been here, I’ve not seen him work a single evil spell!” Which again was true, she knew.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Wizard Howl, Calcifer , Fanny
Page Number: 382
Explanation and Analysis: