Howl’s Moving Castle

by

Diana Wynne Jones

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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.
Family Theme Icon

In many ways, Howl’s Moving Castle is a story about family—about the difficulties of maintaining relationships with one’s blood family, and of the power of chosen family members to fill gaps left by one’s blood family. Howl has a strained relationship with his sister, Megan, who believes Howl is wasting his education and doing nothing with his life. But Megan believes this in part because she lives in Wales (which isn’t magical) and doesn’t know about the close chosen family Howl has built for himself in the magical world of Ingary. There, Howl acts as a father figure and mentor to his teenage apprentice, Michael. And Howl and his fire demon Calcifer have a close, if somewhat strained, relationship, due to the fact that they have a contract that binds Calcifer to Howl’s hearth. Teenage Sophie ultimately joins Howl’s chosen family after the Witch of the Waste curses Sophie to become elderly. Sophie fears that her stepmother and sisters won’t understand or even recognize her in her new form, so it seems like a better idea to simply leave them without saying goodbye. However, Sophie ultimately gets the best of both worlds when, at the end of the novel, she reconnects with her family and, when the curse lifts, is willing to admit that she’s fallen in love with Howl—it’s implied that they will get married after the novel ends, thereby formalizing their chosen family unit. And at the same time, Sophie breaks Calcifer and Howl’s contract, freeing them from any formal obligation to each other—and yet, Calcifer decides to return to Howl’s hearth, so long as he can come and go. This suggests that committing to someone willingly (rather than feeling obligated due to blood ties or a contract) is one of the most important elements in creating a strong and supportive family.

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Family Quotes in Howl’s Moving Castle

Below you will find the important quotes in Howl’s Moving Castle related to the theme of Family.
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

“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 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 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:

Sophie looked up beyond the brick walls of Howl’s yard to her own old house. It looked rather odd because of the new window in it that belonged to Howl’s bedroom, and it made Sophie feel odder still when she realized that Howl’s window did not look out onto the things she saw now. She could see the window of her own old bedroom, up above the shop. That made her feel odd too, because there did not seem to be any way to get up into it now.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter, Wizard Howl
Page Number: 326
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:

But she could not deny that something had been wrong ever since the moving castle moved, or even before that. And it seemed to tie up with the way Sophie seemed so mysteriously unable to face either of her sisters.

Related Characters: Sophie Hatter (speaker), Lettie Hatter, Martha Hatter
Page Number: 364
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: