73 pages • 2 hours read
Howl’s Moving Castle
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Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “In Which Michael has Trouble with a Spell”
Back at the castle, Sophie takes stock of her clothes and notices that they are quickly wearing down. While Sophie mends one of Howl’s suits, Michael works nearby on a spell Howl set for him to learn. Michael begins asking Sophie how many great-nieces she has, and Sophie struggles to hide how she knows both Lettie Hatters. Michael tells Sophie how he came to know Howl. After both his parents died, Michael was unable to find work in Porthaven, fell behind on rent, and was evicted. He sat on the castle’s Porthaven doorstep for days until Howl let him inside. Because Michael spoke with Calcifer once inside the castle and didn’t show he was afraid of the fire demon, Howl let him stay. Michael gradually began taking on apprenticeship duties.
Michael struggles with the spell he is to learn. He shows Sophie the spell and asks for her help. Neither can make sense of it, as it is not truly a spell but the first stanza of the poem "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star” by John Donne, suggesting that Sophie and Michael live in a world parallel to our own. Sophie suggests they consider each line of the poem to be instructional. They take a pair of seven-league boots and step to Porthaven Marshes in the hopes of catching a falling star, as the first line describes. They stand for several hours in the marsh watching the stars until one falls nearby. Michael rushes to catch it. The star has “big, anxious eyes” and “a small, pointed face” (183) amidst its light. The fallen star begs Michael not to pick it up as it is meant to die; the star hops into a nearby pool of water, fizzling out. The pair returns to the castle.
Chapter 10 Summary: “In Which Calcifer Promises Sophie a Hint”
Howl saw Sophie and Michael spying on him and Lettie at Mrs. Fairfax’s and questions their intentions. Sophie claims that Mrs. Fairfax is an old friend. Howl has been summoned by the King and leaves for the meeting while Michael leaves to visit Cesari’s. As Sophie is left alone in the castle, she takes over answering the Porthaven and Kinsgbury doors for people looking to buy spells. Calcifer helps her in giving the customers the appropriate ones. Michael returns, followed by Howl, who has a “tragic attitude” because the King has officially assigned Howl to find his brother Justin and defeat the Witch of the Waste.
Howl gifts Sophie and Michael new, elegant clothes. He intends for them to wear the clothes when he sends Sophie, pretending to be his mother, to meet the King and dissuade him from making Howl his Royal Magician. The next day, Michael will escort her as her footman. Howl instructs her to persuade the King that Howl is useless for larger assignments—like finding Justin—but can be depended upon for smaller spell assignments. Howl has arranged that Sophie meet with his old tutor, Mrs. Pentstemmon, shortly before meeting the King so Sophie can practice speaking with a “grand” person.
Michael complains to Howl about the impossible spell he assigned. He shows Howl the paper. Howl is surprised to find that it is not the spell he intended to assign at all, assuming that Sophie’s cleaning and reorganizing had somehow put the wrong one in front of Michael. Then, he asks Sophie if she ever opened the door to his private location. She admits that she did, saw nothing but blackness, and only put her hand through. The poem entered from that world while she had the door open.
Michael explains how he and Sophie tried to catch a falling star, which shocks Howl into scolding them. Calcifer interrupts to remind Howl that he himself once caught a falling star. Howl orders Michael and Sophie to follow him through the door and into the darkness to their parallel world. As they are leaving, Calcifer calls after Sophie to say, “’You have your hint, by the way’” (201) about the contract he has with Howl.
Chapter 11 Summary: “In Which Howl Goes to a Strange Country in Search of a Spell”
The darkness the door opens onto is only a thin layer. Beyond the door is a Welsh countryside town. All three emerge with different clothes, Howl’s shirt becoming a rugby jersey instead of his usual flamboyant suit. They approach a small house, which Howl enters. His sister Megan Parry and young niece Mari are in the house’s sitting room watching television, which Sophie and Michael take to be a magic box of moving pictures. Howl makes introductions. Megan greets them “in a restrained, disapproving way” (205) and calls her brother Howell. Megan clearly does not approve of Howl’s visit. He asks if her son Neil has lost any of his English homework lately, which Megan confirms. She advised him to hand in the strange writing he did find—the spell Howl wrote for Michael to study—to his English teacher Miss Angorian.
Howl takes Sophie and Michael upstairs to ask Neil himself. Neil is playing a game on the computer with his friend, but neither Sophie nor Michael recognizes the technology. In exchange for a promise of more computer games, Neil tells Howl that Miss Angorian was intrigued by the spell he handed in and took it home with her. Howl hands over the new computer game, which Neil immediately puts into the computer. It depicts the castle, with its four doors.
Back downstairs, Howl and Megan get into an argument. She has sold the books he left at her house, claiming “’I’m not a storehouse for your property. You’re a disgrace’” (211) to herself and her husband as Howl doesn’t have a proper job in their world or act respectably. Sophie, feeling protective of Howl, interrupts Megan’s criticisms and says they must go. Howl keeps a car at Megan’s house, and he drives them to Miss Angorian’s apartment.
Miss Angorian is a beautiful woman with whom Howl immediately begins to flirt. As Miss Angorian looks for the spell, she tells Howl that he causes a lot of gossip in the town with his mysterious comings and goings. Howl dissuades Miss Angorian’s suspicions by claiming that he wrote his doctoral thesis on spells but has never performed one himself. He asks her out to dinner. Miss Angorian refuses, as she still considers herself engaged to Benjamin Sullivan, who disappeared a few years earlier.
Miss Angorian reads the second verse of John Donne’s “Song” from the poetry collection she owns. Howl stops her, visibly upset, and comments on how ‘the good woman is untrue in the last verse, isn’t she?” (221). Howl drives Sophie and Michael back to his sister’s house. He makes cryptic comments about how the Witch of the Waste has “caught up” with him and that on Midsummer Day, the day he turns ten thousand days old (roughly 27 years), he will need to return to her. They return to the castle, where Calcifer confirms that he felt the Witch of the Waste’s curse “take.”
Chapter 12 Summary: “In Which Sophie Becomes Howl’s Old Mother”
The next day, while waiting for Michael and Howl to get ready for their meetings with Mrs. Pentstemmon and the King, Sophie tells Calcifer about the parallel world they visited. Sophie reflects on the relationship between Howl and Calcifer as “she never could work out if Calcifer really hated Howl” (225) or not. Calcifer warns Sophie that if she does not break the contract he has with Howl before the Witch of the Wastes catches him, then he won’t be able to help break her spell.
Howl, Sophie, and Michael arrive at Mrs. Pentstemmon’s house with Sophie pretending to be Mrs. Pendragon, as that is Howl’s alias in Kingsbury. To Sophie, Howl’s former tutor is “the finest and most frightening lady Sophie had ever seen” (229). Howl and Michael leave Sophie alone with Mrs. Pentstemmon, who begins their conversation by saying she is 86 and asking Sophie how old she is. Sophie answers 90 on a whim.
Mrs. Pentstemmon expresses her worry that Howl is slipping into the black arts with magic, as she noticed an attraction charm woven into the seams of his suit intended to attract young ladies. She explains that Howl was the last of her pupils, following Benjamin Sullivan—who would go on to be the King’s Royal Magician the Wizard Sullivan—and that she is determined to ensure that Howl is on a moral track of good magic before she dies. She asks Sophie what could be making Howl use black arts; Sophie admits that he has made a contract with a fire demon. From Mrs. Pentstemmon, Sophie learns that the Witch of the Waste also made a contract with a fire demon long ago and that the demon eventually took control of her. A contract between human and demon requires the human to “[offer] them something valuable, something only humans have” (237) in exchange for access to the demon’s magical strength. Sophie must find out what Howl gave to Calcifer. Mrs. Pentstemmon acknowledges the strong magic she perceives in Sophie.
Sophie is dismissed. She realizes that Mrs. Pentstemmon must be right about her being a witch, which she “[accepts] without any trouble at all” (238). She realizes that she has been mistakenly putting spells on things, such as the attraction spell in Howl’s suit while she mended it. She rejoins Howl and Michael outside. They set off to meet the King.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
The introduction of Wales and the real world as a parallel world to the one in which Sophie, Michael, and other characters of Ingary were born is instigated through John Donne’s poetry. That art, and specifically poetry, which relies on word choice as its chief literary device, should serve as the metaphorical bridge between these worlds suggests a relationship between poetry and spell. Art as relational to magic and magic as fundamental to art becomes embodied in Howl’s academic dissertation on spellwork and magic. By centering Howl’s backstory in real-world Wales, Diana Wynne Jones creates opportunities for the continuation of this series by leaving unanswered questions as to Howl’s childhood, his coming to Ingary, and what this has to do with his predecessor Benjamin Sullivan. This narrative move also contributes to the reader’s understanding of the magic system in Ingary, as a mortal, regular human like Howl born in a land (supposedly) without magic is nevertheless able to speak spells in Ingary. Words, and the right words said for a specific purpose, are thereby confirmed to be the essence of Ingary’s magic system.
Howl’s sister Megan finds disgrace in Howl on two major points: his lack of a proper job and that he doesn’t dress respectably. How one dresses becomes particularly important in these chapters, as it relates to appearance, social agency, and access. Howl must gift Sophie and Michael new clothes to see the King, otherwise their words would not be taken seriously enough. Additionally, Sophie’s accidental attraction charm sewn into one of Howl’s suits implies the real consequences of using one’s appearance to emotionally manipulate others.
Michael’s backstory mirrors that of Sophie’s first meetings with Howl in that Howl’s opinion depends upon two things: whether he pities them and wants to help and whether they positively acknowledge Calcifer. Considering that the climax of the novel reveals Calcifer to be holding Howl’s heart, the latter point suggests that Howl trusts people who treat him kindly and respectfully the most. The two deciding points of Howl’s opinion on a person are in conversation with the two main things that Megan dislikes about her brother. Neither Michael nor Sophie has any means of supporting themselves when they find the castle, and so Howl takes them in, not caring about their lack of a proper job or settled place in society. Furthermore, Michael and Sophie change drastically under Howl’s mentorship, suggesting that he does not take initial appearances—neither physical appearance nor one’s personality—to define them.
Sophie’s relationship with Calcifer strengthens over the course of these chapters, and both come to rely on the other as friends and confidantes. Though Sophie does not realize it, she is actually growing closer to Howl’s heart. She questions whether Calcifer and Howl are enemies, friends, or a combination of both (225), implying that Howl himself often distrusts and is irritated by his own heart. With the Witch’s spell taking effect on Howl and seeming to revolve around his desire to love a “good woman” unlike the one in John Donne’s poem (221), the stakes of the novel are revealed to be whether Sophie will realize that she has access to Howl’s true heart and what she will make of it.
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