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Howl’s Moving Castle
This week I went with an author I was familiar with: Diana Wynne Jones. I have previously read her Chrestomanci works. This novel had the same familiar flavor of writing that I was quick to fall in love with. In this particular novel Jones plays around with the female protagonist stereotype and that of the witch. Much of early media had females playing relatively meager supporting roles, almost taking the place of objects rather than characters. With the image of witches, they were often elderly and displayed as evil.
   Sophie is not the typical female character, partly due to the fact that she spends a large part of the novel in the form of a very old woman. This precipitates some very interesting speculation about the nature of the relationship of age and women and society’s perception of such. It can be derived from not only our current society but our past one as well that age has always seemed an obsession around women. Culture places a large importance on beauty and to many age jeopardizes this. Just looking at advertisements targeting women we can see this (especially makeup). We find later in the novel that it is hinted that in fact it is Sophie herself that is keeping herself old. From this entry I took it as a deeper meaning of a person being there own worst critic. In other words, we are harder on our selves than others are on us. Sophie was much more obsessed with her state than anyone around her, to the point that she believed she was an old woman and had accepted it. It was also because of her state that she believed Howl could not possibly be interested in her romantically.

   I found myself connecting with Calcifer the most, because of the nature of his position for much of the story: the fire place. He is rooted in a stationary place yet plays a large part in the dialogue. I grew up as a single child at a house that was placed a long way away from other children my age. Such a situation makes me liken myself to Calcifer because I was limited to my homestead for much of my young life. I still took a part in others lives, yet felt rather trapped geographically.

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