Previous
Chapter Nine
Themes
Key
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.
Destiny vs. Free Will
Appearances and Assumptions
Family
Magic and Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
Howl is home and in the bathroom when Sophie and Michael get back. He emerges when Sophie is cooking breakfast and teases her for destroying his best suit, for running around so much yesterday, and for snooping on him and Lettie. Sophie snaps that judging by the look on Lettie’s face, Howl won’t need to visit her much longer. Offended, Howl says he’s not leaving Lettie anytime soon and heads out to see the King. He refuses to help Michael with the spell before he goes, so Michael leaves to go visit Martha. Feeling guilty, Sophie begins to sew the triangles she cut back into Howl’s silver suit.
Recall that Michael and Calcifer will only believe Howl is in love when he doesn’t spend hours in the bathroom before seeing the lady in question. So, the fact that Howl is in the bathroom for a long time before visiting Lettie suggests Sophie is right: he’s not truly in love with her. Sophie’s guilt is interesting, as it suggests she wants to impress Howl, or at least make him happy. Putting his suit back together the old-fashioned way is one way she can show him she cares and values him.
Themes
Sophie spends much of the day dispensing spells in Porthaven and Kingsbury, aided by Calcifer (who tells her which door to open and which powders to package up). The only difficult customer is a young man in Kingsbury who asks for something to make him win a duel. Sophie scolds him for dueling, but she packages some cayenne pepper for him and tells him to throw it in the air before the duel starts. When the boy leaves, Calcifer asks when Sophie is going to free him so he can go watch duels. He says Sophie might get a hint about what the contract entails later.
Sophie is becoming part of the household. She’s performing work that Michael usually does, and she and Calcifer are working together as a team to do it. Sophie’s personality and spark also continue to emerge, as when she scolds this young man for dueling. This is, it seems, not something she would’ve done before the Witch made her old. Calcifer’s note that there may be a hint later puts both Sophie and readers on the alert so they can piece together the mystery of his and Howl’s contract.
Themes
When Michael gets home in the late afternoon, he tells Sophie all about his time with Martha. Later, when Howl arrives with packages, he’s hurt and angry: nobody but him is working and nobody will even say hello. When Sophie asks, Howl says the King asked him to go find Prince Justin and suggested he kill the Witch of the Waste too. He won’t let Sophie make dinner and instead tells her to look interested in the gifts he brought her: silk stockings, fine petticoats, a silk dress, and a matching shawl and boots. Michael unwraps a new velvet suit but says he doesn’t need it. Howl argues that both Michael and Sophie need new clothes to see the King. Sophie initially refuses to see the King—but when she realizes Howl will move the castle and break both her sisters’ hearts if she refuses, she agrees.
Though Sophie, Michael, and Calcifer all believe that Howl mostly spends his days playing and flirting, Howl shows here that he expects them all to be busy. But as when he threw the tantrum, his bad mood is about more than just being annoyed with Sophie and Michael. Rather, he’s struggling to process the King’s request. The quality of the clothing he bought Sophie suggests either that he wants Sophie to look the part of a grand old lady—or he simply wants Sophie to have nice things. Sophie refuses to consider this possibility, however.
Themes
Howl lays out the plan: the King is expecting Sophie tomorrow, and Michael will go as her footman. He coaches her through exactly what to say and then suggests that she first visit his old tutor, Mrs. Pentstemmon, so she has some practice speaking to powerful people. Then, finally, Howl turns to Michael and asks what he wants. Michael gives Howl the spell he can’t crack and says they failed to catch a star. Howl’s eyebrows shoot up. He says this is Sophie’s fault, or perhaps the skull’s: the proper spell isn’t here, and Sophie must’ve opened the black door. Howl runs upstairs to look for a book, but he can’t find it.
As Howl frames it, he doesn’t think that Sophie will be able to keep it together in front of the King without some practice first—something that is somewhat insulting to Sophie. Things get more interesting when Howl reacts this way to Michael’s spell. He confirms that the poem isn’t actually a spell, and he implies that it came through the black door when Sophie opened it. Howl also implies that there’s more to the skull than anyone else knows, if he suggests the skull might be to blame.
Themes
Get the entire Howl’s Moving Castle LitChart as a printable PDF.
Howl then confirms that Michael failed to catch a star, seeming angrier by the second. He accuses Sophie of egging Michael on—and then Calcifer points out that it’s not such a big deal. Howl, after all, caught a star once. Howl glares at Calcifer and then makes Michael promise not to try to catch a star again. Then, staring at the paper, Howl says he can’t remember the rest of it, and he thinks the next verse is important. After deliberating for a moment, he turns the doorknob black-down and tells Michael and Sophie to come, so he can keep an eye on them. As Sophie hurries to the door, Calcifer says she got her hint.
Recall the shape of the falling star’s face—it resembled Calcifer’s. Calcifer may have been a falling star, though the novel doesn’t confirm this yet. (Calcifer’s cryptic note that Sophie got her hint, though, suggests this is correct.) Howl’s angry reaction to the fact that Michael tried at all to catch a star suggests he may regret having caught a star himself once. The contract might not be helping him much, either, or his current relationship with Calcifer might not be as good as Sophie thinks it is.
Themes
