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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.
IV. Organization of Chapters
My thesis consists of three chapters. The first and second chapters focus on Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air, respectively. Throughout this thesis, my citations of Jones’s novels are from the two editions: Howl’s Moving Castle (London: Harper, 1986) and Castle in the Air (London: Harper, 1990).7
Chapter two focuses on the image of the castle. It starts with conventional assumption of a castle (its exterior and interior appearance), and a castle as a locale and physical setting in fairy tales. Walt Disney’s fairytale-based animation will serve
The first chapter is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the fairy tale conventions. I will show how Jones deviates from the typical treatment of traditional fairy tale in her two novels. In the second part, I will provide examples in the two narratives to illustrate such deviation.
The examples, as I will show, include clear allusions to well-known fairy tales, which Jones modifies. In the third part, I explore Jones’s fluid use of language and how such fluidity presents multiple meanings. I argue that this device serves as Jones’s tool to break down the boundary between the literal and the metaphorical, thereby confusing her readers and breaking through the traditional ground for fairy tales.
7 Throughout this thesis, I use the recent edition of Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air. The first edition of both novels is unavailable.
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as my visual illustration of conventional castle in fairy tales. I will show that Jones’s moving castle functions as a major character in the two novels, rather than a relatively insignificant physical background. This suggests how Jones redefines the fairy tale.
Jones’s revolutionary visual construction of the castle especially stands out in Hayao Miyazaki’s Anime adaptation of Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). In chapter three, I will discuss the moving castle, focusing on its grotesque appearance and different images presented in the Anime. Different from the castle in Jones’s novels, the castle in Miyazaki’s Anime displays physical transformation along the plotline. The castle’s metamorphosis characterizes the characters’ transformation. The fluid quality of the castle and the characters correspond to Jones’s deviation from fairy tale conventions as well as her play of ambiguity in language. With the multiple ways of presentation, the castle in Miyazaki’s Anime not only captures the spirit of Jones’s narrative, but it also reflects the postmodern age, which “unseats any fixed ordering of the world” (Rudd 268).
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Chapter Two
“Only true in a manner of speaking”?: The Ambiguity of Language
Calypso, when she finally agrees to let Odysseus go, tells him he has to visit Hades first. This could be her way of saying “I’ll see you in hell first!” but, since she is a nymph and semi-divine, it becomes literal truth and means “You’ll have to pass through death first.1
--Diana Wynne Jones, “The Heroic Ideal—A Personal Odyssey”
If a tale begins with “once upon a time,” we can expect its ending to be
“happily ever after”—the pattern of a typical fairy tale, undoubtedly. Within this familiar frame, we expect to see the familiar elements: a hero, a journey, some magical creatures, and a rescue plot. This pattern of fairy tale seems to be so embedded in our knowledge that the genre of fairy tale can be recognized at first sight. Even modern fairy tales, which are usually modified to a certain degree, are nevertheless influenced by this pattern. No matter how much it transforms, the pattern of the fairy tale is still recognizable. I will start the chapter by applying Propp’s formula to Jones’s two novels, Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air.
I will demonstrate that, even though Jones modifies Propp’s system, the novels carry on the basic structure of the fairy tale. This is done by using Lüthi’s theory of the style of the traditional fairy tale as well as Todorov’s theory of “hesitating allegory.”
I will also analyze the two novels, particularly the ambiguity of the language, as I argue that the ambiguity of meanings contributes to Jones’s deviation from the traditional fairy tale.
1 Emphasis (in italics) mine.
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The term of fairy tale, or “[les] contes de fées” in French, does not present its definition precisely. According to Oxford English Dictionary, “fairy-tale” is defined as “a. A Tale about fairies. Also gen., fairy legend, faerie. b. An unreal or incredible story. c. A falsehood” (fairy-tale, n.). None of these definitions suffices to describe fairy tales precisely because a fairy tale seems to mean several things at once: “tales that include elements of folk tradition and magical or supernatural elements, tales that have a certain, predictable structure” (Harries 6). Deriving from oral folktales,
especially oral wonder tales, fairy tales certainly bear many of their features. However, it is the predictable structure that determines the nature of the genre.
The most recognizable feature in a typical fairy tale is its beginning (“once upon a time”) and ending ([so they live] “happily ever after”). Roz Chast outlines the basic plot of a fairy tale in her “Story Template.” Framed between “once upon a time”
and “happily ever after,” a dragon appears “suddenly,” then a superman shows up
“luckily” in time. The sequence—stability, disruption, intervention, and stability again—is the typical fairy-tale pattern with which everyone is familiar (Harries 8-10).
While Chast’s template offers a vivid summary of a typical fairy tale’s outline, it is still not sufficient to describe the development of the plot. Vladimir Propp provides a more detailed pattern. In his Morphology of the Folktale, Propp puts forth thirty-one functions of a fairy tale.2 By function, Propp means the act of a character, which serves as the driving force of the narrative. Each function constitutes a sequence of events that demonstrates a fixed pattern. Regarding the function, Propp specifies four principles:
1) Functions of characters serve as stable, constant elements in a tale, independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled. They constitute the fundamental components of a tale.
2 The “folktale” is also referred to as the fairy tale, as Propp points out in “Author’s Foreward.”
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2) The number of functions known to the fairy tale is limited.
3) The sequence of functions is always identical.
4) All fairy tales are of one type in regard to their structure. (21-23)
While a fairy tale may not contain all of the functions, the sequence of the functions remains in the same order (Propp 21-23). The structure of each fairy tale is thus predictable under any circumstances, according to Propp.3
Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air basically follow the pattern of fairy tales, though she modifies certain details. The
modifications reveal her awareness of and her deviation from the traditional pattern of the fairy tale genre. In this chapter, I seek to discover Jones’s deviation not only in the modifications of some functions and allusions but also in her play of language.
Howl’s Moving Castle concerns the protagonist Sophie Hatter’s journey to seek her fortune. The story is inherently dominated by the first paragraph in the opening of the book: “it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes” (Jones, Howl’s 1). The narrative style of this opening, though not stated with “once upon a time” as most fairy tales do, is undoubtedly fairy tales’ in terms of its certainty and clarity. Of particular importance is this “universal truth,” which prevails in the entire story. As the eldest child, Sophie believes that she is bound to fail, an assumption based on this fairy-tale rule (Zipes, Oxford Companion 271).
Using it as a pretext, she keeps putting off the idea of seeking her own fortune, assuming that she would fail at any rate, which conforms to the simplicity and clarity in the traditional fairy tale.
Sophie and her sisters are “warned never to go out alone” due to Wizard Howl’s
3 All Propp references are to the Morphology of the Folktale (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1968)
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wicked behaviors to girls (Jones, Howl’s 4). This conforms to the function that there is an interdiction addressed to the hero before he or she leaves home for the journey (Propp 26). The three Hatter sisters seek out their own fortunes nevertheless
conforming to the necessary violation of such interdiction in Propp’s system (Propp 27). In addition to the violation of interdiction, the fairy tale hero departs from home for his or her journey out of a sense of insufficiency: “one member of a family either lacks something or desires to have something” (Propp 35). In Sophie’s case, the lack derives from her belief of being the eldest; she “very soon realized how little chance she had of an interesting future” (Jones, Howl’s 2). Disappointed as she is, “Sophie admitted to herself that her life was rather dull…interesting things did seem to happen, but always to somebody else” (Jones, Howl’s 11, 13). When she ventures to make her life more interesting by visiting her sister, she is frightened and overwhelmed by the crowd on the street. The “misfortune” of being the eldest once again comes to her mind: “What made me think I wanted life to be interesting? [...] I’d be far too scared.
It comes of being the eldest of three” (Jones, Howl’s 14). Leading a dull
unsatisfactory life, Sophie is nevertheless unable to change it. While she desires an interesting and even adventurous future, it frightens her, as well. Both Sophie’s interiority and her struggles between wanting and seeking a life she desires vary the fairytale functions that Propp proposes. Indeed, it breaks the tradition of
one-dimensionality of the characters in traditional fairy tales.
The fairy tale character’s sense of lack does not suffice to urge the hero to set off a journey. The time comes only when his or her “misfortune or lack is made known;
the hero is approached with a request or command; he is allowed to go or he is dispatched” (Propp 36). When Sophie is transformed into an old woman, the misfortune is made known and thus she is compelled to leave home and to start a quest. Unlike the condition set up by Propp, she is neither allowed to go nor
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dispatched but forced to go. This leads to Propp’s next function, “the hero leaves home” (Propp 39). There are two different types of hero in this function:
seeker-heroes and victim-heroes. Although Sophie aims to seek her own fortune, she is a victim-hero for being enchanted, which “marks the beginning of a journey without searches, on which various adventures await the hero” (Propp 39). Indeed, it does not take her long to search until she enters Howl’s moving castle, where she begins her real journey.
According to Propp’s system, the travelling hero is “tested, interrogated, attacked, etc., which prepares the way for his receiving either a magical agent or helper” and then “acquires the use of a magical agent” (Propp 39-43). The importance of the agent lies on his magical power, which will “permit the eventual liquidation of misfortune”
(Propp 39). This condition, however, does not apply to Sophie’s case. No
interrogation or test takes place on her way to the castle; neither does she receive any magical agents. On the contrary, she is endowed with magical power herself without realizing it. As Zipes points out, this is one of Jones’s favorite devices. Instead of being “assisted by a magical helper,” Sophie becomes a sorceress (Oxford Companion 271).
Not being tested on her way to the castle, Sophie nevertheless gets the threefold encounter, which in a traditional fairy tale would help the protagonist liquidate his or her misfortune. The encounter is modified in this case, though. Aware of the two encounters, Sophie expects the third time: “‘There’s two encounters,’ she said, ‘and not a scrap of magical gratitude from either…I’m surely due to have a third encounter, magical or not. In fact, I insist on one. I wonder what it will be’” (Jones, Howl’s
31-32). Sophie’s knowledge of threefold encounter and her expectation to receive a magical agent reflect Jones’s acknowledgement of traditional fairy tale pattern. Since she receives no magical agent, her “liquidation of misfortune” does not take place if it
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were not for her own magical power, namely, her ability to endow an inanimate object with life by talking to it. Jones’s modification of Sophie’s encounter and ability allows her characters to realize her dreams without the assistance of others.
In a traditional fairy tale, the hero’s journey is near the end when he is
“transferred, delivered, or led to the whereabouts of an object of search” (Propp 50).
However, Sophie’s journey begins after she enters Howl’s moving castle. Assuming the role of a cleaning lady, she starts her new life there. The story ends with the defeat of the villain, the Witch of the Waste, as stated in one of Propp’s functions (Propp 53).
The climax of the pattern is that “the initial misfortune or lack is liquidated” (Propp 55). The curse on Sophie is broken; she regains her youth once she breaks Howl’s contract with Calcifer. The novel does not end here: a happy ending of a fairy tale, as Propp suggests, implies a marriage (Propp 63).
However, this is an unconventional happy ending:
Howl said, “I think we ought to live happily ever after,” and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more eventful than any story made it sound, though she was determined to try. “It should be hair-raising,” added Howl.
“And you’ll exploit me,” Sophie said.
“And then you’ll cut up all my suits to teach me,” said Howl. (Jones, Howl’s 328)
David Rudd discusses this ending from the perspective of deconstruction. He argues that, in this ending, “marriage per se isn’t mentioned at all, nor is love” (Rudd 260).4 However, I believe that Howl’s proposal that he and Sophie will “live happily ever after” is a typical way to refer to marriage in a fairy tale. Similarly, Jones’s
4 Rudd also points out that “Howl’s words, ‘I think we ought to live happily ever after,’ sound more like a resigned recognition that this is how such stories as theirs must come to an end in their closing pages, even though it is not going to be like that in reality” (Rudd 260).
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description of the couple’s “holding one another’s hands and smiling and smiling, quite unable to stop” is merely another way to convey love, another elements in a typical ending of fairy tale (Jones, Howl’s 329).
Jones’s way to convey the happy ending rhetoric, however, is rather
unconventional. Instead of talking about “happily ever after” as a narrator, Jones makes her character (Howl) utter the must-say in this context. Rather than delivering the sense of conclusion in this message, it on the contrary produces a sense of
uncertainty due to the over-certain words coming from a character. Regarding the happy ending, Rudd also points out that “this exchange between Sophie and Howl does not conclude the novel.” He means that the happy ending is not only between Howl and Sophie. Instead, the fire demon Calcifer is given the final words in this happy ending:
“You didn’t need to do that,” Howl said.
“I don’t mind, as long as I can come and go,” Calcifer said. “Besides, it’s raining out there in Market Chipping.” (Jones, Howl’s 329)
Rudd sees a “ménage a trios” that leads to future development of the characters’
relationship (in the sequel) (Rudd 260). The happy ending seems to him among all of the three characters, which may be considered another unconventional ending.
However, his claim, emphasizing the plot’s structure at the expense of its content, is not convincing owing to the lack of evidence.
Rudd’s analysis does point out a significant feature of the novel: Jones reworks its ending, turning it into a conclusion that does not conform to the conventional happy ending in a fairy tale. Through the mouth of Sophie, Jones tells us that “living happily ever after” is actually too good to be plausible. In the novel’s sequel, Castle in the Air, Jones tells us more about the couple after their happy ending: “Sophie and Howl were living—somewhat quarrelsomely, it must be confessed, although they
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were said to be happiest that way—in the moving castle again” (297). This confirms Sophie’s “prophecy” in the happy ending of Howl’s Moving Castle that living with Howl would be “a good deal more eventful than any story made it sound” (Jones 328).
The happy ending in Howl’s Moving Castle, which presents a happy marriage with uncertainty, indicates that the story will proceed to its sequel, Castle in the Air.
In this story, Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer will show up until the very end. They are turned out to be the other characters which allude to the classical fairy tale, Arabian Nights.
With such exotic elements as a magic carpet, a genie, djinn, and the
(protagonist’s) name of Abdullah, Castle in the Air clearly refers to Arabian Nights.
Propp’s theory of morphology can be applied to Castle in the Air as well. The story concerns Abdullah’s daydream, in which he builds his castle in the air. He later finds out that all of his daydreams somehow come true. The djinn, major villain in this story, realizes Abdullah’s daydreams, thereby serving as the driving force of the plot.
One of Propp’s fairy tale functions states that a villain in a typical fairy tale “attempts to deceive his victim in order to take possession of him or of his belongings” (Propp 29). This feature certainly applies to the djinn, who disguises himself as a carpet dealer and sells Abdullah a magic carpet. Abdullah buys the magic carpet, though skeptically. Jones again modifies the conventional elements of the fairy tale. Unlike the victim in a traditional fairy tale, who according to Propp would “submit to the villain’s deception and unwittingly help his enemy,” Abdullah is alert to the deception (Propp 30). He continues to suspect any tricks. Jones’s modification of her major victim’s character endows the protagonist with depth, turning her fairy tale
protagonist into a more complex and wiser character and, arguably, a more interesting
protagonist into a more complex and wiser character and, arguably, a more interesting