73 pages • 2 hours read
Howl’s Moving Castle
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “In Which Sophie Talks to Hats”
Howl’s Moving Castle is set in a land called Ingary, where magic, witches, and wizards are part of everyday life. Sophie Hatter is an 18-year-old young woman living in the town of Market Chipping with her father, stepmother Fanny, biological sister Lettie, and half-sister Martha. The family keeps a hat shop. As Sophie is the eldest sister, she is expected to be the “one who will fail first, and worst” (1) to secure herself a fortune.
Outside Market Chipping is a stretch of hills and wilderness called the Waste. At the story’s beginning, the Witch of the Waste threatens the King’s daughter and is rumored to have killed the King’s personal magician Wizard Suliman when the Wizard came to the Wastes to admonish the Witch. A few months later, the Witch is thought to have moved out of the Wastes. A black, moving castle appears in the Wastes, belonging to the Wizard Howl. People in Market Chipping believe Howl to be particularly malicious and often searching for young women to eat their hearts.
Following the death of Mr. Hatter, Fanny reorganizes the shop’s finances to pay off debts. She takes Sophie and her sisters out of school and apprentices them: Sophie will stay in the hat shop, Lettie will go to Cesari’s bakery, and Martha will be apprenticed to the witch Mrs. Fairfax. The younger sisters soon depart for their new lives, and Sophie receives sparse correspondence from them over the ensuing months. In the hat shop, Sophie feels “isolated and a little dull” (11) and begins talking to the hats she trims. She hears gossip from the customers that suggests Lettie has received many marriage proposals from the male customers of Cesari’s. As May Day approaches, Sophie works through the night to make enough hats, and she begins to wish for a more interesting life.
On May Day, Sophie dresses in a gray dress and shawl and sets out to visit Lettie across town. While out in town, Sophie is fearful and timid “as if the past months of sitting and sewing had turned her into an old woman” (17). A young, attractive man approaches her, but Sophie is too fearful to have a conversation and runs off. When she arrives at Cesari’s, she finds Lettie surrounded by admirers. Lettie takes her to the backroom where she reveals herself to actually be Martha under an appearance-shifting spell.
Chapter 2 Summary: “In Which Sophie is Compelled to Seek Her Fortune”
Martha explains that she and Lettie had a plan to switch apprenticeships from the beginning, as Lettie wanted to learn witchcraft and Martha wanted to find a man to marry and have 10 children. After two weeks with Mrs. Fairfax, Martha was able to find a spell to switch their appearances. The sisters secretly swapped places. The spell wears off gradually until each sister returns to their real appearance.
Martha questions Sophie about the hat shop. Martha states that Fanny is exploiting Sophie, as Sophie does a lot of valuable work without being compensated for it while Fanny enjoys a luxurious life in town. Sophie leaves feeling “more like an invalid than ever” (29). She continues working in the hat shop, but after a week, she approaches Fanny about being compensated for her work. Fanny evades the question, and Sophie realizes her stepmother is in fact exploiting her labor. Sophie is so upset that she briefly considers striking out to seek her fortune but is held back by the belief that an eldest daughter would fail in that.
One afternoon, an affluent woman enters the shop while Sophie is there alone. Sophie worries they do not have a hat grand enough for her. The woman rejects the hats Sophie shows her then reveals she is the Witch of the Waste and has come into the shop to prevent Sophie from being successful. She puts a spell on Sophie that ages her into an old woman and prevents her from speaking of the spell to anyone.
Sophie’s reflection in the mirror is that of an old woman. She calmly accepts her fate and decides to leave Market Chipping. After packing some clothes and money, Sophie walks into the Waste. She encounters a scarecrow with a turnip for a head, a dog stuck by its leash, and a man walking along the path who expresses concern for her being out in the Wastes with night approaching. Sophie realizes how tired she is just when Howl’s castle appears, moving toward her. She calls out for the castle to stop.
Chapter 3 Summary: “In Which Sophie Enters into a Castle and a Bargain”
Howl’s castle is lopsided in shape, built of black blocks of irregular size, and gives off a chill. With the castle motionless, Sophie tries to enter the front door but finds herself blocked by an invisible wall. She walks around the castle to the back door, hits it with her walking stick, and demands it open. The door opens and reveals Michael, a young man of 15 apprenticed to Howl. Sophie enters the castle and immediately sits by the fire to warm herself. Michael says that Howl is currently out; Sophie lies and says she has business with Howl and will wait for him. She dozes off next to the fire then wakes in the middle of the night. The fire flares green and blue when she puts more wood on.
The fire is actually a fire demon named Calcifer, who begins speaking to Sophie. He is able to detect she is under a spell and proposes a bargain: He will break the spell on her if she promises to break the contract that keeps him bound to the castle’s hearth and Howl’s commands. He is able to speak of Sophie’s spell because he can already see it. However, he is unable to tell Sophie about the contract binding him to Howl unless she discovers it herself. Both agree to study the other for a month to break their respective spell and contract. Furthermore, they agree to deceive Howl that they are working together.
Chapter 4 Summary: “In Which Sophie Discovers Several Strange Things”
The next morning, Sophie wakes up to discover that the shock of the previous day has worn off, and “[s]he was very angry indeed with the Witch of the Waste for doing this to her” (65). From a window, Sophie can see Porthaven, a dockside town many miles from the Waste. The inside of the castle is “amazingly dirty” (66) and uncared for. She opens the four doors off the main room and finds stairs, a bathroom, a closet, and a yard in Porthaven. From the back door she can see the Wastes. Michael comes down from his room up the stairs and offers Sophie a cold breakfast, as no one but Howl is allowed to cook on Calcifer’s fire. Sophie claims that Michael is being exploited in this restriction and insists upon making a hot breakfast for them. She persuades Calcifer to let her cook.
Howl returns. Sophie realizes that he is the young man who approached her in Market Chipping on May Day. She claims to be his new cleaning lady. Howl takes over the cooking. During breakfast, Howl explains that some of the house exists in Porthaven, Kingsbury, the Wastes, and a fourth space he won’t give more information about. To enter each of these spaces, a cube is rotated next to the backdoor. Howl explains that he is constantly moving after having offended the Witch of the Waste a year previous. A knock sounds on the door, which Calcifer says comes from Kingsbury. Howl opens it and accepts payment for a spell from a messenger of the King.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Magic in Ingary is accessed mostly through spellwork and a person’s predisposition for learning, interest in seeking knowledge, and to some extent natural ability. It is a part of everyday life in that the King has a Royal Magician as part of his court and the appearance of the Witch and Howl in the Waste outside Market Chipping, while threatening, does not stop daily life in the town. When Martha is sent to learn magic with Mrs. Fairfax, it is with the connotation that she is receiving the most fortunate apprenticeship out of the sisters.
Roles and birth order are important factors of social mobility in Ingary. Sophie, as the eldest daughter, lives her entire life under the social expectation of not finding a fortune or leading a life with excitement, and change is not possible. Like the magic system in Ingary, the reason behind these social roles is not discussed in the text but are accepted as true by the reader because of how strongly Sophie believes in them. Sophie’s dedication to her perceived future as an eldest daughter and “how little chance she had of an interesting future” (2) when she becomes Fanny’s apprentice at the hat shop is challenged by her two sisters taking initiative in their own lives. When Martha and Lettie switch places so Lettie, the middle sister, can pursue the best education traditionally reserved for the youngest and most fortunate daughter, traditional conceptions around birth order are questioned. This introduces a motif in the novel of character agency and access—essentially, characters pursuing the kind of life they want and what societal, educational, and professional accesses that life requires. It should be noted that the novel’s discussion of birth order, fortune, and educational access does not extend to men. This further supports the argument that the strictness surrounding social expectations of an eldest daughter exist most strongly in Sophie’s head.
Martha and Lettie switching appearances likewise introduces the novel’s theme of Identity. They accept the need to physically look different to those around them to live the lives they want, and they do so, even though both pursue romantic relationships during their new apprenticeships. Appearance is then presented as something constantly under flux and unassociated with a person’s true sense of identity or personality. What does matter in Ingary and with magic, however, is what is permissible to say. Sophie cannot speak of her spell. Calcifer, likewise, cannot speak of the contract he is under. While appearances can be taken to be duplicitous, the words a person says weigh heavily on the social and magical interactions the characters of Howl’s Moving Castle experience.
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