Essay Questions

Do you think that Sophie is a witch?

In this novel, being a witch or a wizard seems to be a career path rather than a calling or a set of gifts. For example, it is something that is studied for and in the same way that Sophie is an apprentice milliner, Michael is an apprentice wizard. Becoming a witch or a wizard is a choice. However, Sophie does seem to have the gift naturally as even when she does not realize it her words have power and her habit of speaking with inanimate objects, such as hats or her walking stick, seems to breathe life into them or enchant them in some way. Sophie also seems to see things that are unfortunate or the result of random bad luck more as a curse than just a bad roll of the dice. The only reason she herself does not recognize her power is that she feels rendered powerless by her position as eldest of three sisters which means she will never amount to much of anything, including much of a witch.

How does the author juxtapose the mystical world and the real world?

The author uses Wales as the real world in the novel and in the real world, which is contemporary with the time in the 1980s when the book was written, there are children who attend school, write essays and play video games; there are regular jobs, popular sports and universities attended by kids from all walks of life, such as Hywell. In the mystical realm Thai includes Market Chipping, society seems to have progressed far less. Girls are still bargained into apprenticeships and do not get to graduate from school; magic is a widely accepted element of life; there is a king entirely separate from the British monarch. The mystical realm in the book seems far more of an historical time than the Wales that Howl comes from and goes back to.

Is Calcifer a good or an evil character?

For most of the novel it is difficult to tell whether or not Calcifer is a good character. Exhaust he is a demon and it seems generally accepted that demons are all bad. However, the outcome of the novel illustrates that we as readers are imposing our own opinion of demons onto Calcifer and in somewhere mystical like Market Chipping there are both good demons and bad demons. We start to believe in Calcifer being a good character when Sophie muses that although Howl might deserve an unpleasant fate at times Calcifer most certainly does not. He is bound to stay with Howl by their contract but hopes that someone will break it because he does not want to become evil and overpower Howl as the Witch's demon has done, demonstrating his basically decent intentions. He also seems attached to the "family" as even when freed he returns, showing that his loyalty to them was always genuine and not contrived in order to achieve his own ends.