54 pages • 1 hour read
Diana Wynne JonesCastle in the Air
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Personal Agency Versus Fate
During his journey, Abdullah frequently wrestles with the notion of agency and questions how much control he has over his own life. His destiny has been prophesized since birth, but he ignores this in favor of his own daydreams—he does not want a fate chosen by others. Throughout Abdullah’s dilemma, the novel thus explores the tensions between personal agency versus fate.
Abdullah’s daydreams are about an imagined birthright rather than his own projected actions, as he initially believes his fate is determined by the circumstances of birth. The gradual materialization of these daydreams builds a false sense of fatalism, which is then undercut by the reveal that Hasruel orchestrated these events. This revelation challenges the literary trope of destiny in a quest story: Apparent “fate” actually reflects choices. Diana Wynne Jones suggests that events that might seem inevitable or fated are sometimes the consequences of deliberate actions.
Nonetheless, Hasruel still represents a bigger power dictating events. Abdullah struggles with the sense that everything is determined by other forces, big and small. These include “Fate,” whether the prophecies or Hasruel, but also the soldier and the cats, who manage to manipulate him to get their way. He consciously engages with the idea of “Fate,” capitalizing it and personifying it to show that he feels it dictates his choices. He first challenges fate by becoming passive in the hope that “Fate” will be forced to fulfil itself.
Significantly, Abdullah’s passivity achieves nothing, which Wynne Jones highlights by giving the characters a metafictional awareness that the plot is failing to move forward: They have a strange “hunch” that when they reach Kingsbury, “things are going to start moving” (165), but they can’t seem to get close. Abdullah breaks this impasse through taking action. He engineers his happy ending when he faces the djinns directly: Even though he must play by their rules, he finds ways to exploit them to his advantage. Wynne Jones shows that though there may be bigger forces at play, it is always possible for a person to make their own choices, and this achieves more than passivity.
Abdullah ultimately realizes the prophecy does not dictate his fate, as it could refer to a range of outcomes: It is up to him to determine what it will mean. Abdullah fulfils his destiny when he goes up to the castle in search of Flower-in-the-Night—he has found a future he wants independently of other people’s ideas, and he chooses to actively pursue his goal. Wynne Jones thus shows a world in which fate and choice exist concurrently and are not necessarily at odds with each other, as Abdullah’s fate comes about because of his choices.
The Importance of Learning from Experience
Throughout Castle in the Air, various characters face challenges and experiences that cause them to question their preconceived notions or to adapt their behavior to changing circumstances. Throughout these instances, the characters demonstrate the importance of learning from experience.
Flower-in-the-Night is the primary example of learning from experience and becoming stronger for it. Although she has led a very sheltered life, she is curious, open, and sharp. She learns fast and becomes savvy enough to trick the djinns. She is confident in herself, innately understanding that her upbringing doesn’t have to mean she is limited. Wynne Jones shows that it is not a person’s background or pre-existing knowledge that’s important, but how they adapt and their willingness to keep an open mind.
Wynne Jones also uses the character development of Sophie to emphasize learning and adaptability. In this book’s predecessor, Howl’s Moving Castle, Sophie struggles to overcome her preconceived ideas about her fate and is held back by lack of self-confidence, but in Castle in the Air, she has learned from her experiences. She confidently uses her magic in crucial moments, allowing her and Abdullah to breathe in high altitude and allowing the princesses to plot in secret. Wynne Jones shows how important experience is in enabling development and helping people fulfil their potential.
Experience is also important for social learning. Abdullah’s experiences challenge some of his preconceptions. He ends up befriending some of the northern people whom he thought of as barbaric. His cultural distrust of cats is challenged as Midnight and Whippersnapper are literally personified: They turn out to be human beings. He learns that Midnight is only aggressive when defending herself and her baby. He sees that there is nothing inherently wrong with women having an outspoken and forceful personality, as he turns to Sophie and Lettie to help him. Wynne Jones does not dismantle all of his preconceptions around gender or culture: He is still misogynistic and derogatory about the nieces. However, she does show that through the experience of interacting with individuals, he can begin to consciously learn about his own worldviews.
Hasruel brings about these experiential lessons for many of the characters. Abdullah is forced to live in the adventure world he created to see what it’s really like and test whether he will seize control of his fate. The soldier experiences the reality of life for the soldiers he defeated, learning to empathize with them and ultimately resolving to help them. Howl learns how it feels to be helplessly trapped by a bigger power, mirroring how he overpowered the Strangians. Hasruel himself also learns from enacting these experiences: Being bound to his brother’s will has ironically freed him from the constraints of being a “Good Djinn,” and since he actually enjoys “wickedness,” he decides he needs a new start. Experience is therefore crucial for learning and can teach people about themselves and each other.
Navigating the Lines between Fiction and Reality
In Castle in the Air, Wynne Jones creates a world in which nothing is as it seems, and many apparent truths are fictions: The cats aren’t cats, the soldier isn’t a soldier, the bandits aren’t real bandits, and the carpet and the genie are in fact other beings trapped in these objects. Many of Abdullah’s adventures and the coincidences he experiences are in fact arranged by Hasruel. These twists are metaphors for the deceptive and complicated world Abdullah is in, forcing him to constantly navigate the lines between fiction and reality.
Abdullah’s realization that his fantasies are coming true gives his adventures a metafictional element, cemented by his correct prediction of Kabul Aqba’s name. He is consciously aware of the fantastical nature of events, drawing attention to the fact that he exists within the construct of a story or a fairytale. Wynne Jones highlights the gulf between fiction and reality by emphasizing the unlikeliness of these events. However, by tying these adventures in with Abdullah’s imaginings, she shows that fiction is a projection of people’s real internal lives, including their fears and desires.
The novel also suggests that fiction reflects and interacts with real social structures and culture. Abdullah’s daydreams—and, subsequently, his misadventures—all engage with the idea that a person’s birth determines their options and their social position. Wynne Jones shows that there is a two-way relationship between reality and fiction, as they have the power to impact each other. Abdullah’s fiction changes his life, but reality also influences his daydreams, which he adapts in response to the world around him, such as incorporating Flower-in-the-Night and bluebells into his imagined life.
The author also uses the kidnapped princesses to explore this theme: Hasruel relies on the fictional trope that their men will come and save them, but they do not wait to be rescued. Instead, the princesses are active in orchestrating their own escape. As characters, they are informed by the traditional stereotype, but they also start to challenge it. Wynne Jones suggests that common narratives impact how people see themselves and the world but that fiction likes hers can also challenge stereotypical assumptions, suggesting that real humans are more complex: Flower-in-the-Night is happy that Abdullah comes for her, but she also takes charge of her own rescue.
Ultimately, Abdullah has to find a balance between the worlds of fiction and reality. He has to be honest about reality in order to get his happy ending. When he admits to Flower-in-the-Night that he is not really a prince, they are able to truly connect through learning that their fantasies and realities are compatible: She had the same daydream as his, but in reverse. The novel thus reinforces the value of fiction but implies that it must inevitably relate to reality.
