Magic and Coming of Age Theme Analysis

Sophie felt as if the past months of sitting and sewing had turned her into an old woman or a semi-invalid.

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.

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.

“You’re a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You’re victimizing us all.”

“But it’s a pigsty,” said Sophie. “I can’t help what I am!”

“Yes you can,” said Howl.

“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!”

“As if I wouldn’t recognize one of my own honey-based spells! But as I said to her at the time, ‘I’m not one to keep anyone against their will and I’d always rather teach someone who wants to learn. Only,’ I said to her, ‘I’ll have no pretense here. You stay as your own self or not at all.’ And it’s worked out very happily, as you see.”

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.”

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.

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.

“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.

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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

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.

“I said,” Michael shouted, “that Calcifer’s come back!”

That did get Howl’s attention, and Sophie’s too. They looked at the grate where, sure enough, the familiar blue face was flickering among the logs.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Howl said.

“I don’t mind, as long as I can come and go,” Calcifer said. “Besides, it’s raining out in Market Chipping.”