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Poem: “Sweet Darkness”

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.

There you can be sure you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home tonight.

The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

- David Whyte

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Real World Connection

“If we are prepared to peer beyond the stereotypes, we find that ageing, just like the rest of life, is a mixture of gains and losses. There are losses associated with every stage of our lives: we may long to be free of the tyranny of school or a job, for instance, but grieve over the loss of the structure they provide. Throughout the lifecycle, mourning is an essential human task, freeing up a space in which new qualities and experiences can develop.For what is hidden in our culture are the gains associated with ageing. Most older people say they care far less what other people think of them. When the American poet May Sarton was asked why it was good to be old, she replied: "Because I am more myself than I have ever been." The people I interviewed say that they have learned to live life more fully, to savour it, and are better able to weather crises (though they still have crises, despite that other stereotype of ageing: serenity).”

“People can revitalize themselves at any age; we can go on learning and developing until our final breath. When a 90-year-old British woman was asked why she volunteered, she replied succinctly: "Personal growth." Perhaps this is why they call it growing old."Owning" the ageing process instead of fighting it makes it easier to value our older selves, and reclaim – both individually and together – a sense of the lifecycle. Without, I hope, falling back on glib mantras or slogans from the manual of positive thinking, I believe there has never been a better time to age, to challenge the narrative of decline and age-denial and to celebrate longevity.As for those young people panicking over ageing, listen to Maggie Kuhn, fabulous founder of the campaigning group the Gray Panthers. Her 30th birthday was her worst, she recalled – when she was 85 – and her battle cry, "Learning and sex until rigor mortis", is as welcome today as ever.”

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Analysis

What types of symbolism are in the text? 

The symbolism of the heart is used in Howl’s Moving Castle. It symbolizes, as hearts usually do, love and caring about others. Howl says that he made “a bargain some years ago, and... shall never be able to love anyone properly” (pg. 215). He is referring to giving Calcifer his heart in exchange for him powering the moving castle. Because he does not have a heart, he believes that he cannot love, which is why he always breaks up with women once they fall in love with him. Once his heart is returned, he is able to be with Sophie.

What themes recur throughout the text?

One major theme that appears in Howl’s Moving Castle is confinement, both physical and mental. For example, Calcifer, a fire demon,  is confined to Howl’s fireplace due to the contract that they made in which Calcifer gets Howl’s heart, which he needs to live, and Howl gets Calcifer to power his moving castle. The other main example of confinement in this book is Sophie’s mental confinement. She is trapped by her own low self esteem and belief that she can not amount to anything because she is the oldest of three siblings and will end up taking over her father’s hat shop. This is shown when the book states that “it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.” (p.1), and “She simply felt resigned to the hat trade.” (p. 6).

Another important theme in Howl’s Moving Castle is the theme of old age. In the book, Sophie, an eighteen year old girl, is turned into an old lady by an evil witch. As an old lady, she lets go of her self consciousness and does and says what she wants, so in some ways it was a freeing experience for her, shown when the book says "as an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that to be a great relief." (pg. 41). It allowed her to acquire some of the wisdom that one acquires with old age, and when she becomes young again she keeps the wisdom and confidence that she gained while she was old.

Were the plot and subplots believable?

Since Howl’s Moving Castle is a fantasy book, the plot is not completely believable because things such as wizards and fire demons do not exist in real life, but once you look past the magical aspects of it, the plot is believable. At the beginning, it seems strange that Sophie would just suddenly leave home, but as the reader gets to know her and sees how she often makes rash decisions, or as Howl says to her, “You just never stop to think!”(pg. 319)

Where could the story go from here?

The story could easily go towards Sophie and Howl getting married. They could have their happily ever after ending, because at the end of the last chapter, everyone who lived in Howl’s Moving Castle were back together again after Calcifer being split apart from them for a short time.

What did you think of the ending?

The ending of Howl’s Moving Castle reflects greatly on Jones’ thoughts about life and the things that it has in store for you. At the start of the book, Sophie is a introverted worry wart who thinks that she is meant for nothing in life. However, by the end of the story, Sophie’s confidence has skyrocketed by leaps and bounds due to her time spent as an old woman. Enough so that she chases after the witch of the waste, risking her life- a major improvement  when you consider that she previously had stated that simply saying something silly would have caused her to shrivel “with embarrassment at the way she was behaving” (page 42). Sophie comes out of her shell, she finds love, goes on an incredible adventure, and makes a life for herself. Something, that at the start, was unimaginable for her. The ending of Howl’s Moving Castle is a testament to the fact that life is what you make of it, nothing is set in stone and you are not born into failure. You can change your life for the greater, you just have to be cursed into an old lady first.

What is the great strength -- or most noticeable weakness – of the text?

The great strength of the text is how Jones vaguely portrays the characters and other details. She uses enough imagery for you to imagine certain features but with multiple borders put up for you not to stray too far from the actual image of the characters and other aspects of the book. The most noticeable weakness of the text is the lack of depth. The lack of depth is a strength while talking about the characters, but it is a weakness when it comes to other things such as emotions. It is hard to figure out how a section of the text goes from one to the next when we are not given much data throughout both of the sections.

Does the story fit an archetype? (i.e. romance, tragedy, comedy, satire, irony). How do those “types” manifest themselves? 

Howl’s Moving Castle is a story that does not stray from cliches and it definitely falls into the archetype of irony (with a mix of romance). Irony manifests itself in a number of ways. One such way is the fact that Sophie believes her life to not be meant for important, grand things, due to the fact that she’s the eldest child and her life purpose is to take over the family hat store. However, that is exactly the opposite of what she does with her life as she sets off on an incredible life journey that includes things such as traveling to a distant world, taking down a powerful witch, and joining the royal court. It only took her turning to a very old age in order to realize that her life was not meant to be spent in a dusty old hat shop.

Another manifestation of irony takes place on a more romantic note. For example, in the first instances of Howl being mentioned he is described as an “utterly cold-blooded and heartless wizard” that “no young girl was safe from” (page 3), a statement that Sophie believes to be completely true and, in fact, lives greatly in fear of. As Sophie works under Howl, constantly in fear of the way he may have murdered young women, she eventually finds herself alone with Calcifer and Michael and is utterly astonished with the nonchalant manner in which the two boys speak of Howl’s soul-stealing-heart-eating ways. The irony in the fear that Sophie holds for Howl and his presumed human-heart-filled-diet is that, in a way, it is her that steals his heart in the end. Howl, the egomaniac, so obsessed with the color of his hair that he summons dark spirits out of depression when it’s the wrong color, Howl who believes that breaking girls hearts is a sport in which he reigns supreme, Howl who by the end of the book is described to be holding Sophie’s hand and “smiling and smiling, quite unable to stop” (page 212).

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Biography

Diana Wynne Jones was born August 16, 1934 in London, United Kingdom to her mother and father Marjorie Jones and Richard Aneurin Jones. She was the middle child of three and had two sisters, Ursula Jones and Isobel Armstrong. She is most well known for her series Howl’s Moving Castle which was adpated into an animated movie by Studio Ghibli in 2005. Her other well known series include the Chrestomanci series, and the Dalemark series which, like Howl’s Moving Castle are also fantasy novels. 

Throughout her writing career, Jones received a number of awards recognizing her prowess as an author. The first of which was the the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize given to her in 1978 for her novel Charmed Life. In 1996 and again in 1999 she was bestowed with the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature twice for her books Darklord of Derkholm and the Crown of Dalemark. Also in 1999, the British Fantasy Society acknowledged her impact on the fantasy genre and awarded her with the Karl Edward Wagner Award. Later on in her career in 2006 and 2007 she received two more awards: in 2006 the Pheonix Award for her novel Howl’s Moving Castle and in 2007 the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

Diana Wynne Jones passed away in 2011 on March 26 in Bristol, United Kingdom. Though Jones has passed on, the books that she has written will remain for many more lifetimes, allowing her to pass on her imaginative ways and the beautiful worlds she has created for many years to follow.