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Gwendolyn Royal

English 115

Professor Lewis

23 November 2015

Stages of Sophie’s Identity

Childhood adolescence and growing up involves stages. In order to transform form a

child to an adult, one will go through these stages many times throughout their lifetime. People

tend to mature and evolve. Jacques Lacan is a French theorist that discovered the three stages of

adolescence: the imaginary, the mirror and the symbolic. The imaginary stage is part of the un-

consciousness. It is reasoning by knowing what one is by what the other is not. The mirror stage

is prelinguistic and is broken into two stages: external identification and the imago. Finally, the

symbolic stage is linguistic and is when one sees in binary pairs, being able to relate to things. In

the novel, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, the protagonist, Sophie, goes through

these stages of childhood development. Sophie is a young girl, the eldest of two sisters. She goes

through a majestic adventure trying to outwit witches, wizards and a curse. Throughout this ad-

venture, she finds herself and grows into an adult. Lacan’s theories of childhood development

and psychoanalysis can also help explain why Sophie does certain things and is a certain way.

According to Lacan, we all go through these stages of childhood development

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(Johnston). We all must go from baby to child to adult. When Sophie becomes an old woman,

she experiences these stages again in order to become herself again.

The imaginary stage is the first stage in Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis of childhood de-

velopment. It is part of the unconsciousness. One does not have self awareness or rules. The

imaginary is when a child starts to become an actual being, rather than something that just ex-

isted. It is developing feelings, emotions and a little understanding. It does not know what most

of this means, but it is becoming a real person. They are developing a sense of self, “The Imagi-

nary: the imaginary becomes the internalized image of this ideal, whole, self and is situated

around the notion of coherence rather than fragmentation,” (Loos). The child, or adult is develop-

ing an ego and starting to fall in love with themselves essentially. In the beginning of Howl’s

Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, Sophie becomes a full time hatter. She makes these mag-

ical hats that give whoever is wearing them special powers. Sophie is very lonely, therefor she

talks to the hats. “She said to the mushroom-pleated bonnet, ‘You have a heart of gold and some-

one in a high position will see it and fall in love with you.’ This was because she was sorry for

the particular bonnet. It looked so funny and plain,”(14). Later that week, people kept asking for

a bonnet like the one she sold and gave special powers, unknowingly. Sophie thought it was a

very unfortunate looking bonnet, yet it made people fall in love with whoever was wearing it.

This is Sophie going through the imaginary stage. She loves that her hat is

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wanted. Since her hat is wanted, it must mean that she is wanted. It gives her a confidence boost.

This also helps Sophie realize her talents and her abilities. She can now understand that she is

good at making hats and this is something that she is extremely and truly proud of. This effects

her ego and makes it greater. Talking to the hats is the only pleasure that Sophie gets out of her

dreadful job that her mother pushed onto her. She is challenging her imagination and loneliness.

Sophie’s powers lack self awareness and rules. Her bonnets, hats and everything in-between have

limitless possibilities all because Sophie has no idea of how powerful she actually is. It is like

when a child is unaware of its powers of its parents. The child cries, gets their way and has no

idea why.

The mirror stage is the second in Jacques Lacan’s analysis of adolescent development. It

is when someone sees themselves for the first time. This can take place when a child realizes

what they look like - most of the time looking in an actual mirror and seeing their own reflection.

According to Amanda Loos of The University of Chicago, “According to Lacan, when the infant

stumbles upon a mirror (see Mirror), she is suddenly bombarded with an image of herself as

whole – whereas she previously experienced existence as a fragmented entity with libidinal

needs.” The child will recognize themselves as a being and see themselves as they are. They be-

come much more self aware and get a better grasp of self-awareness. The mirror stage itself is

broken into two stages: the external identification and the imago. External identification is gain-

ing knowledge of itself, the baby will realize who they are. The imago is a false image that

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the baby physically sees in the mirror. The baby does not truly see themselves. A mirror only re-

flects the image back at us, so no one ever truly sees themselves for who they truly are - just

purely opposite. Therefor, no one actually knows themselves according to the imago. Sophie ex-

periences the mirror stage early in the novel. After the Witch of the Waste turns her into an old

woman, Sophie goes up and sees her reflection in the mirror. This is the imago because Sophie is

not actually a frail, sixty year old woman. She is a young, thriving girl. When she looks in the

mirror and sees the wrinkles staring back at her, it is a false sense of self. Sophie then starts to

recognize herself and identify as the old woman. She even embraces it by coming up with back

stories and tells lies about her relation to family members to make her secret unknown (Jones

138). This is a image because Sophie is not actually an elderly woman. She has a curse on her-

self, which is her false sense of self. It is not who Sophie truly is. Another example of Sophie

going through the mirror stage is when she becomes a florist. Her entire life she is known as one

thing, a hatter. It is part of her identity. She makes hats and it good at it. Then she starts to be-

come a florist in order to help out Howl, a powerful wizard who she is working as a maid for

while trying to break her curse. This challenges Sophie’s general identity. In the world she lives

in, when a child becomes a certain age they learn a trade and become one, specific thing. Sophie

became that one thing, a hatter. Then, she aged fifty years in a matter of seconds so she was

forced to change her plans. Sophie had to see herself as a florist in order to survive. This new

identity and self discovery was Sophie experiencing the mirror stage once again. Sophie evolved

and became a new person often throughout the novel. The mirror stage is a perfect way to relate

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these times and help explain Lacan’s theories about adolescent, childhood and teen development

and aging.

The final stage of childhood development is the symbolic stage. This is when the child

develops speech; it is the linguistic stage. Being able to communicate is imperative to childhood

development. It helps transform the child from something that just exists to something that takes

part in society. Their first word is the symbolic order. They learn from parents, sitters, teachers

and any other form of authority that they happen to be around. Their existence is dependent on

their ability to speak. Speech is how we communicate to others. It is a very important part of

childhood development and Lacan’s theories. In the online essay, “Symbolic, Real, Imaginary”

by Amanda Loos of the University of Chicago, she discusses the symbolic stage and its effect on

childhood development:

The Symbolic: in contrast to the imaginary, the symbolic involves the formation of

signifiers and language and is considered to be the "determining order of the

subject". Seeing the entire system of the unconscious/conscious as

manifesting in an endless web of signifiers/ieds and associations,

Lacan claims that, "Symbols in fact envelop the life of man in a network so total that they

join together, before he comes into the world, those who are going to engender him…”

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Sophie of Howl’s Moving Castle also goes through the symbolic stage. This happens at the very

end when she and Howl, her mentor and theoretical boss, finally admit their true feelings for

each other. Howl seemed like a far fetched dream that would never happen. He was the ultimate

bachelor, bouncing from woman to woman once he got bored with them. Sophie was the ulti-

mate loner, thinking she could never amount to anything or even deserve love. Developing love

for Howl and receiving it back changed her. It boosted her ego and her happiness. This is Sophie

learning the language of love and emotion, her linguistic stage. She learned how to communicate

and speak as an adult. She was finally an adult. She was no longer the young girl making hats in

the back of a shop while her mother exploited her talents. Her friends were no longer magical

hats and she realized her potential. Howl’s love for Sophie also helped her realize that she was a

powerful witch. She has the power to give life to objects. She could talk to them and they would

talk back. Turns out she was not nearly as crazy and everyone thought she was for conversing

with the merchandise in her family’s hat shop. The hats came to life because Sophie’s magic

helped them and told them to. Sophie is a magical witch who did not even realize it until she was

eighteen. Part of the symbolic stage is learning from someone. Sophie learning from Howl about

magic and love is what completes the entire process. It proves that Sophie still had some growing

up to do. She needed to find out who she was and what she could become.

Sophie Hatter is a complex girl who grew up a lot in Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Mov-

ing Castle. She experienced each of Jacques Lacan’s stages of childhood adolescence. First

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was the imaginary stage where she developed a sense of self. Her ego formed and so did her con-

fidence. This was when Sophie learned to talk to hats. Following that, Sophie experienced the

mirror stage. This happened when she was transformed into an elderly woman by an evil witch

and saw herself in the mirror for the first time. Finally, she experienced the symbolic stage,

where she learned the language of love by falling for the most powerful wizard, Howl. Sophie

learns who she is and to love who she is by going through and experiencing these complex

stages. Jacques Lacan’s brilliant work is used to dissect literature just like Howl’s Moving Castle.

Lacan was influenced by Freud to create these three stages. People go through these stages re-

peatedly throughout their lives, starting the second that they are born. Lacan’s theories, stages

and work are going to influence, shape and help explain literature for years to come. The three

stages play a huge role in Diana Wynne Jones’s novel and many others.

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Works Cited

Jones, Diana Wynne. Howl's Moving Castle. New York: Greenwillow, 1986. Print.

Johnston, Adrian. "Jacques Lacan." Stanford University. Stanford University, 02 Apr. 2013.

Web. 13 Nov. 2015. Website

Loos, Amanda. "Symbolic, Real, Imaginary." Symbolic, Real, Imaginary. University of Chicago,

Winter 2002. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.