10/31/2022 0 Comments Howls moving castle gifsThrough this focus on housework and exploitation, Howl’s Moving Castle is clear-sighted about how gender functions in society. At one point, Sophie’s half-sister remarks that her mother “knows you don’t have to be unkind to someone in order to exploit them.” And Howl, who also seems to know this, likewise acknowledges that he is exploiting Sophie in the novel’s final pages. Indeed, the word “exploit” is used constantly in the novel. This may sound like regressive gender politics, but Jones always points out how Howl’s relationship to Sophie is, at least at first, fundamentally exploitative. HOWLS MOVING CASTLE GIFS FULLOne of Jones’s chapter titles is, “Which is far too full of washing.” She also makes spells, but whole chapters of the novel are devoted to Sophie cleaning the castle, cooking breakfast, or mending Howl’s suits. Like so many women, in Howl’s Moving Castle it is Sophie who does the housework. Meanwhile, the ever-present risk of infection renders help from the community-from family, friends, or professionals-literally dangerous. As article after article has chronicled, the pandemic has been especially brutal on women: our lack of a strong federal response to the pandemic and deep-seated devaluation of carework has forced many women to continue in their jobs while simultaneously shouldering a disproportionate burden of child care and domestic chores. This year of course has brought domestic labor to the forefront of popular consciousness. HOWLS MOVING CASTLE GIFS SERIESAs my wife and I talk over and divvy up the never-ending series of domestic tasks-I do the cooking, she does the meal planning, I sweep the floors, she scrubs the sinks-it’s refreshing to encounter a fantasy novel that actually validates that people can’t just cast spells all day, but have to shop for food and clean. Not only is it delightful and psychologically complex, but it focuses on a topic that dominates our contemporary lives: housework. The claustrophobic quest of Howl’s Moving Castle is a perfect read for this pandemic year, when many of us are trapped inside, or when the outside world that we need to navigate is historically perilous. Indeed, whenever Sophie, exasperated by the selfish Howl, resolves to leave permanently, she is prevented, whether by a magical scarecrow, by the arrival of guests, or by her own self-doubt. There are quick excursions outside-the castle has a magical door to four different locations-but Sophie and the novel always return to the castle, and mostly just its one main room. HOWLS MOVING CASTLE GIFS TRIALBut rather than serving as the initial trial in a grand quest, as it might for Frodo or Bilbo, the castle becomes Sophie’s new home. Sophie’s first encounter is with the castle of the supposedly wicked wizard Howl, which is lurching across the countryside near Sophie’s town. Tolkien and Lloyd Alexander, albeit with a female protagonist and a lot more hat-trimming. Jones seems initially to adhere closely to the traditional arc of the fantasy genre established before her by writers like J.R.R. As a result, she decides to leave home to seek her destiny. In the novel first published in 1986, Sophie Hatter, a young woman growing up in the fairy tale land of Ingary, is turned into an old woman by the villainous Witch of the Waste.
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