And They Lived Happily Ever After...Kind Of: Why Howl's Moving Castle Should Be Considered a Fairy Tale for the Modern Day

“In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”₁ This is how the story of Howl’s Moving Castle begins, and it immediately draws you into a place where these magical items, and many more, are commonplace. The novel Howl’s Moving Castle, written by Diana Wynne Jones, follows the story of Sofie, a young girl who works in a hat shop with her mother who is transformed into an elderly woman by an evil witch known as the Witch of the Waste. As she begins her search for the witch in an effort to get changed back into a human, she ends up staying in a magical moving castle that belongs to the wizard Howl, a man who is widely regarded in Sofie’s town to eat the hearts of beautiful women. However, this is not the case, and he allows her to stay with him, his student Michael Fisher, and the fire demon who powers the castle, Calcifer, as she looks for a way to break the curse. Howl’s Moving Castle shares many common traits that span across the history of fairy tales, including common motifs, themes, archetypes, and Cashdan’s Four Stages. This being the case, it should be considered a fairy tale in its own right and join the ranks of fairy tales, even if it is longer than most.

To begin with, we will look at the elements of the four stages of a fairy tale, as put forth by Sheldon Cashdan in his book The Witch Must Die. The four stages are considered to be as follows: crossing, encounter, conquest, and celebration, in that order. The first stage, crossing, “leads the hero/heroine into an alien/foreign otherworld that is preceded by a challenging dilemma that must be solved,” and is categorized by “magical occurrences and strange creatures.”₂ In Sofie’s case, she is thrown from her normal life in her small town and placed directly into the world of the magical when the Witch of the Waste puts a spell on her that turns her into an elderly woman. This spell is the driving force behind the novel, pushing Sofie to find a way to break it.

The second stage, encounter, “involves challenges in the forms of impossible trials, an evil presence/person, evils such as poverty or slave labor, or monsters.”₃ While it could be argued that the encounter in Sofie's case is her initial encounter with the Witch, but she meets her many times throughout the course of the novel. This stage involves her struggle to figure out a way to break Calcifer's contract with Howl in order to get her young body back, as he told her that if she broke it, he would break the curse Sofie was under. In an effort to do this, Sofie travels as an elderly woman across treacherous terrain including mountains and swamps, and the struggle she goes through to do so emphasizes the evils done by the Witch of the Waste. 

The third stage, conquest, can be summed up in the four simple words that make up Cashdan’s book title, The Witch Must Die. In this stage, “the hero/heroine must enter into a life and death struggle with the evil that ultimately ends in victory.”₄ While there is a final confrontation between Howl, Sofie, and the Witch of the Waste (the predominant evil figure of the story), the climax of the story is a little different. The final confrontation between Howl, Sofie, and the Witch was caused because the Witch had kidnapped Miss Angorian, a love interest of Howl’s. After the Witch’s defeat, however, it is revealed that Miss Angorian is nowhere to be found. That is because she is back in Howl’s castle, attempting to steal Howl’s heart that is held by Calcifer, as she is actually the Witch of the Waste’s fire demon, looking for a new human body to inhabit. The climax of the story is when she is defeated when Howl crushes the Witch of the Waste’s heart, the source of Miss Angorian’s power and her link to the deceased Witch’s life force.

The fourth and final stage, celebration, is exactly how it sounds. This is the stage that leads to the classic phrase “…and they lived happily ever after.” This stage typically includes wedding feasts or family reunions that help celebrate the idea that good will always triumph over evil. In Howl’s Moving Castle, a small family reunion was already taking place in the castle before the conflict occurred, which included Sofie mother as well as her sister, and they helped with the celebration after the battle against Miss Angorian. However, that is not the true celebration that occurs after the battle. The true celebration comes when, after Sofie broke Calcifer’s contract with Howl mid-battle in an attempt to save the young wizard from the brink of death, the spell that had been put on her by the Witch of the Waste was broken, leaving her a young girl again. Upon seeing her, Howl realizes that he has met her before during the May Day festivities that surround the events of the novel, and remarks that they should live happily ever after. Sofie agrees, and the rest is left to us as readers to interpret, as the novel closes with Sofie and Howl holding each other as Calcifer returns to the castle, though he is no longer held there by contract with Howl.

Moving past Cashdan’s four stages, common motifs show up in Howl’s Moving Castle as well. First and most obvious is the recurring struggle between good and evil that has been around since the beginning of fairy tales, if not longer.₅ This theme repeats through classic fairy tales, and Howl’s Moving Castle is no different. There is a constant struggle between light and dark in this novel, between Howl and Sofie, the main protagonists of the story as well as the predominant “good” characters, and the Witch of the Waste, the main antagonist and the predominant “evil” of the story. Ultimately though, as in most fairy tales, good triumphs over evil when Sofie and Howl defeat the Witch and Miss Angorian in the final battle, leaving them to pursue a life together now that Sofie’s curse has been broken by Calcifer.

The common motif of human weakness is also tackled in this novel, as it is in many fairy tales from across the globe.₆ Human weakness is prevalent in this novel in the form of Howl and Sofie as well. Howl is obsessed with his physical appearance, to the point where when his hair is dyed a slightly off shade of pink, he goes completely ballistic and ends up covering his castle in green slime in what can only be accurately described as a spectacular temper tantrum. Sofie herself is fairly skittish and doesn't think a lot of herself, though she is actually a very powerful witch. Human weakness is also present in the form of the Witch of the Waste, who used her fire demon in an attempt to stay young when she, in reality, should have died many years prior to when the novel takes place.

While the characters of Howl’s Moving Castle exhibit quite a bit of weakness, human strength is as much a common motif as human weakness is in this novel, showing up again in the characters of Howl and Sofie. Howl overcomes his cowardice and faces the Witch of the Waste, along with going to find the lost Prince, which was a mission he had shied away from. He even goes on to say that "the only way I could do something this terrifying is to convince myself I'm not going to do it."₇ In this same general vein, Sofie realizes by the end of the novel that she is very powerful, and she uses that power to help Howl defeat Miss Angorian and break Calcifer and Howl's contract.

While common fairy tale motifs are present throughout Howl’s Moving Castle, another important element is as well; common fairy tale themes. The biggest theme that is present in both classic fairy tales as well as in Jones’ novel is the concept of appearances being deceiving, a theme that is present in many classic fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella.₈ Sofie looks like a 90-year-old woman, but she is in fact a young girl who was cursed by an evil witch. This theme applies to the character of Calcifier as well, as Calcifer’s face is described as “extraordinarily evil,” though throughout the novel we come to realize that he is not at all and is actually rather nervous and vulnerable.₉  

Another theme that is tackled in Howl’s Moving Castle is the theme of freedom and confinement.₁₀ There are two main types of confinement present in the novel: magical confinement and mental confinement. Magical confinement is present in the contract that keeps Calcifer bound to the fireplace of the castle, and also in the curse that keeps Sofie an old woman. Mental confinement includes all the bad habits of the characters that hold them back, the biggest example of this being Sofie’s low self-esteem that keeps her from realizing her full potential until the end of the novel.

The theme of family presents itself in the novel as well, a theme that has been well explored in tales like Beauty and the Beast when Beauty sacrifices herself for the sake of her father.₁₁ There are two different kinds of family throughout Howl's Moving Castle; blood and chosen. On the blood side, you have the Hatters and Howl's sister and her husband and children, along with Howl’s sister, her husband, and their sons and daughters, who are all shown to be very important to their respective family members. On the chosen side, you have friends who chose each other (Sofie, Howl, Calcifer, Michael) for varying reasons, whether it be a place to stay, as a mentor, or because of a growing affection between parties. Regardless of which familial bond is present, these bonds are shown to be very important throughout the course of the novel.

The final theme that will be touched upon here, though there are many that could be discussed, is that of the supernatural. Any fairy tale worth its salt has supernatural elements, such as Sleeping Beauty’s one hundred year sleep, Beast’s transformation into a prince, or magical tears that resurrect the dead; Howl’s Moving Castle is no exception to this rule. “Howl's Moving Castle never takes its supernatural elements for granted. But if you disregard the spells for safety and flowers and moving castles and the many (many) curses, the main plot of Howl's Moving Castle really hinges on personal relationships. Oh sure Sophie has to cope with her old age curse and Howl has to get his heart back, but symbolically speaking, this just means that Sophie has to get out more and improve her self-esteem and Howl has to learn how to commit to one woman,” says Schmoop.com, and this is very true.₁₂ As with many fairy tales, the supernatural elements assist in driving a story about something else completely. In the end, this story is about a search for self, while it masquerades in a fantasy world.

While universal themes and motifs are all well and good, something pivotal is missing in the argument for why Howl’s Moving Castle should be considered a fairy tale; the characters themselves. The characters in this novel fall into universal character archetypes that span across all of literature, but are especially present in fairy tales, the first of which being the archetype of “The Mentor.” The Mentor archetype is described as being “an older, wiser teacher to the initiates. He often serves as a father or mother figure. He gives the hero gifts (weapons, food, magic, information), serves as a role model or as hero’s conscience.”₁₃ Two characters fall into this archetype: Calcifer and Howl. Calcifer falls into this category for Sofie. While he doesn't serve as a fatherly or maternal presence, he does help Sofie figure out how to break the curse on her, as well as his contract. Howl falls into this category for Michael, as he took him into his castle and trains him as a magical apprentice. He also serves as a pseudo-fatherly presence in his life, as Michael has no other family.

The second character archetype present in Howl’s Moving Castle is that of “The Shadow.” The Shadow archetype is described as being “a worthy opponent with whom the hero must struggle in a fight to the end.”₁₄ It is also said that the Shadow can represent a darker side of the hero’s own psyche. Both the Witch of the Waste and the fire demon that inhabits Miss Angorian fall into this category, as Howl and Sofie must battle both of them near the end of the story to achieve peace. If you look at it, The Witch represents what Howl could have become, and Miss Angorian what Calcifer could have become if they had followed darker paths.

While Howl falls into the category of “The Mentor,” in Michael’s eyes, for the readers he fulfills a very different archetype; “The Hero.” The Hero “is a protagonist whose life is a series of well-marked adventures. The circumstances of his birth are unusual, and he is raised by a guardian. He will have to leave his kingdom, only to return to it upon reaching manhood. Characterized by courage, strength, and honor, the hero will endure hardship, even risk his life for the good of all.”₁₅ However, looking at his character, Howl is really none of those things at all. His character actually almost perfectly mirrors that of the Hero archetype, as he is cowardly, lazy, and weak. Because of this distinct mirrored effect, though, it is a very pleasant surprise when Howl rises up to become the hero we all knew he could be in his final battle with Miss Angorian and the Witch of the Waste.

While putting Sofie in this category does not quite do justice to the strength of her character, it is most appropriate for her struggle throughout the novel: “The Damsel in Distress.” The Damsel archetype is typically described thusly: “A vulnerable woman who needs to be rescued by the hero. She is often used as a trap to ensnare the unsuspecting hero.”₁₆ And while this archetype does not fully encompass the complexity that is Sofie Hatter, on a basic level, it does. Sofie is rescued by Howl time and time again; when she needs a place to stay, when a cursed scarecrow attacks the castle, when she gets captured by the Witch of the Waste when she went to go rescue Miss Angorian, and the list continues. And while Sofie does save Howl a few times throughout the novel, most notably at the climactic battle with Miss Angorian, it is primarily Howl who is getting Sofie out of trouble.

The final archetype that will be discussed here is a rather complex one: “The Trickster.” The Trickster archetype has many facets and complexities, but on a simplistic level, a Trickster “breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, Loki) but usually with ultimately positive effects. The trickster is an important archetype in the history of man. He is a god, yet he is not. He is the wise-fool. He rebels against authority, pokes fun at the overly serious, creates convoluted schemes that may or may not work, plays with the laws of the universe and is sometimes his own worst enemy."₁₇ The character of Calcifer is a classic trickster, at least by this simplistic definition. Calcifer is a fire demon, which, while not quite having divine status, provides him a link to the spirit world. Calcifer is the one who suggests to Sofie that she break his contract and, in return, promises that he will break the spell she is under, all the while not being positive that he can actually follow through on the promise he made her. He is repeatedly shown to be sarcastic, witty, and have a love-hate relationship with Howl, the master of the castle. Overall, Calcifer fills out the Trickster archetype for this tale fairly nicely.

While Howl’s Moving Castle isn’t a fairy tale in the traditional sense, it certainly has the elements of one from a literary analysis standpoint; between fulfilling Cashdan’s Four Stages and having many of the universal character archetypes that are typically found in fairy tales, it should certainly be considered one. Setting all literary analysis aside for a moment, the tale has the magical air to it that makes it a thrill to read time and time again, and each time you learn something new from it. You can pick up the novel and learn a lesson in self-confidence from Sofie, a lesson on facing your fears from Howl, a lesson in studiousness from Michael, or a lesson in cunning and tenacity from Calcifer. You can learn to not let your demons get the better of you like the Witch of the Waste, no matter how crushing they may seem at any given moment. And isn’t that what fairy tales are supposed to do? As they have been adapted over time, fairy tales have become a method of teaching our youth important lessons, even if they initially weren’t for that purpose at all. Regardless of where you are in your life, you can find the lesson you need in Howl’s Moving Castle. So, raise your head high and crack open the novel because, in the words of Howl himself, you “…ought to live happily ever after.”₁₈