In this thesis, I will explore the connection between the use of language and the changing images of the castle. I will start with my discussion of language with Tzvetan Todorov’s and Vladimir Propp’s structuralist approach. Propp formulizes thiry-one functions in fairy tales, components that drive a story forward. These functions constitute a sequence of events that demonstrate a fixed pattern in a fairy tale. While a tale may not contain all the functions, the order of the sequence of functions remains the same (Propp 21-23). In what follows, I will introduce some of the functions that can apply to my discussion of Jones’s texts.6
The first seven functions in Propp’s theory include interdiction addressed, villain appeared, and victim deceived. The insufficiency or lack of the hero leads to a quest. Later the hero leaves home, is on his way to be tested, and acquires a magical agent. Then he or she is led to the place where the object is. The hero fights and defeats the villain, thereby liquidating the initial misfortune or lack. The story ends at this point with the hero’s marriage or ascension to the throne (Propp 26-63). This pattern can be roughly applied to Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air, though not completely conform to it in detail.
While Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air can fit into Propp’s theory of fairy tale, Jones modifies some details regarding the various functions. For example, Jones grants her protagonists magical powers rather than assisting them with a magical helper (Zipes, Oxford Companion 271). However, readers still can perceive that this is the same function, judging from the similar acts, i.e., both aid protagonists with magical power but in different ways. Starting from fairy tale convention, I shall first indicate the fairy tale pattern that Jones adopt, based on Propp’s fairy tale
6 While Jones’s Castle series is regarded as postmodern, its content fits into Propp’s structuralist system. As I will show later, Jones’s use of language is post-structuralist, yet the plotline of the Castle series follows traditional structure of fairy tales.
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functions, and then point out her modification in some details. Todorov’s structural approach, however, will be the main discussion related to my argument.
Todorov analyzes the characteristics of the fantastic, of which the fairy tale is a genre. One of the characteristics is the use of allegory. According to Todorov, allegory is “a proposition with a double meaning, but whose literal meaning has been entirely effaced” (62). However, how the double meaning functions is a controversial issue among scholars. For example, Fontanier maintains that “allegory consists in a proposition with two meanings, a literal meaning and a spiritual meaning both together” (Todorov 63). His claim that the two meanings can be present together rather than one of the meanings must disappear, as Todorov summarizes, is the foundation for my argument—reader’s interpretation between the allegorical and the literal.
According to Todorov, the opposition between allegorical and literal meanings is embodied in several degrees of allegory, ranging from pure allegory to “hesitating”
allegory. Traditional fairy tales, exemplified by most of Perrault’s works, demonstrate explicit allegorical meanings in which literal meanings are completely ignored and thus to be put into pure allegory. The “hesitating” allegory is much more complicated due to the double meaning, which in turn creates intriguing problems of interpretation.
Hoffmann’s “The Tale of the Lost Reflection,” for example, demonstrates the literal meaning of a lost reflection perceived but, at the same time, the allegorical meaning of the loss of personality. Confronted by the ambiguous meanings, we hesitate between the two interpretations before adopting one of them (Todorov 64-70). The
“hesitating” allegory thus displays the uncertainty of meaning which Jones seems to adopt in her novels when she deviates from traditional fairy tale.
Max Lüthi’s theory plays a crucial part in my discussion of Jones’s deviation from the fairy tale. Lüthi explores the fairy tale tradition, especially the typical writing
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style of this genre: “There is no ‘if’ and no ‘perhaps,’ the three-legged stool
unquestionably has three legs.” The statement indicates the basic characteristic of a typical European fairy tale: certainty and precision (Lüthi, Once 47-48). The fairy tale also “prefers everything solid and clearly formed,” which is why castle and city appear more often than village and cave. Furthermore, because of the absence of unessential details in the fairy tale, the characters and their feelings are usually not narrated in detail, but rather “externalized,” with “everything clearly formed (in colors as well as in shape)” (Lüthi, Once 51). The general features of fairy tale style—clarity, solidity, and visibility—form a great contrast to Jones’s presentation of her fairy tales, not only in contents but also in her play of language.
Jones’s play of “in-between” meanings is unique in the genre of fairy tale.
Applying both figurative and literal meanings to her text, Jones distinguishes her works from traditional fairy tales in a new fashion. Due to the nature of the fantastic, the literal meaning can be realized and thus the fluid meanings between the literal and the figurative become more prominent in the framework of fairy tale. After analyzing the two novels with the aid of Propp’s theory, I will examine Jones’s deviation from traditional style of fairy tales, applying the fairy tale pattern set up by Max Lüthi.
Todorov’s idea of “hesitating” allegory is one of the most important concepts I will adopt in my discussion of Jones’s use of language. The problem of interpretation appears to be similar to that in these two novels. However, the case is different. Jones is more inclined to employ the common use of language (e.g., the idea of a castle in the air) to confuse her readers, whereas Todorov’s examples from Hoffmann and Poe focus on a single motif. Therefore, roughly based on Todorov’s idea, I would analyze Jones’s fluidity of meanings specifically in the genre of fairy tale to demonstrate Jones’s uniqueness in her new fairy tales.
The ambiguity in language is even more emphatically projected by means of the
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castle’s image, which displays both the grotesque and a sense of mobility. In my second and third chapters, Howl’s castle remains an important theme in my discussion.
After exploring the imagery and function of a conventional castle in both history and fairy tales, I will offer a close assessment of Howl’s rather unconventional castle in both novels. Hayao Miyazaki’s grotesque visual presentation of the castle stands out in his Anime adaptation of Jones’s novel. The in-between appearance of Howl’s castle manifests the vacillation between the literal and the metaphorical. Since the
in-between can be regarded as the most prominent feature of the grotesque, I will adopt Lee Byron Jennings’ definition of the grotesque to analyze the features of Howl’s castle and its physical transformation, in particular. As I will show, the castle’s transformation mirrors the major characters’ transformation. Miyazaki’s adaptation therefore conveys the idea of mobility and fluidity, which in turn reflects Jones’s use of language.
The shifting nature of language is a prominent feature of Jones’s deviation from fairy tale tradition and further connects to the reality. A subgenre of fantasy, fairy tale usually includes supernatural elements that attract the readers, as these elements present a departure from the reality. In her discussion of the traditional notion of fantasy in relation to reality, Rosemary Jackson points out the “‘free-floating’ and escapist qualities” in fantasy: “literature of the fantastic has been claimed as
‘transcending’ reality, ‘escaping’ the human condition and constructing superior alternate, ‘secondary’ worlds” (Jackson 1-2). It is generally agreed that fantasy is free from any restraints. However, Jackson argues that the literary fantastic is never “free”
since its creation derives from the lack of reality. In other words, to Jackson, the fantasy is a “literature of desire, which seeks that which is experienced as absence and loss” (Jackson 3). Therefore, fantasy literature projects our unconscious desire, which cannot be met in reality. Fantasy is thus not transcendental: it combines familiar
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elements in new relations to transform them into unfamiliar new ones (Jackson 8). I argue that Jones’s use of shifting nature of language in both novels conveys the
“free-floating” quality, but not totally denies a part of Jackson’s ideas that the creation of the fantasy should be connected to reality. I propose that Jones’s fantasy maintain both the quality of mobility and the reflection of reality. Put another way, Jones’s fantasy presents a seemingly different world, which, despite its supernatural elements, mirrors the real world.