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.
Chapters 14-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Which Tells How the Carpet Reappeared”
Abdullah and the soldier finally see Kingsbury on the distant horizon and another castle-shaped cloud. The soldier says he understands Abdullah’s desire to challenge Fate, but he argues that the genie has to grant them a wish either way, so he may as well make things a bit easier and wish for the carpet. When the carpet arrives, it carries Kabul Aqba, who shifts into a different form: He is actually the djinn. Abdullah uses djinn lore to get him to speak to them.
The djinn introduces himself as Hasruel, an incredibly powerful Good Djinn. Hasruel tells them that his weak but clever half-brother, Dalzel, has turned out to be an Evil Djinn. He stole Hasruel’s “life”—the only mortal part of a djinn—so now Hasruel is bound to do his bidding. Hasruel first stole a moving castle from a wizard in Ingary. Then, Dalzel told him to steal every princess in the world. However, Hasruel has made sure to leave a trail of bereft lovers or relations, hoping they will pursue the princesses and recover his “life” from Dalzel.
Hasruel laid out the circumstances for Abdullah coming after Flower-in-the-Night, selling him the carpet and playing out his daydreams. He glances at the soldier as he explains that he aims to give each suitor appropriate misadventures. Hasruel thought Abdullah was an outside bet, assuming one of the great noblemen would do better, but actually, Abdullah is proving the most proactive.
The djinn says the princesses are all up in the castle they have been seeing in the sky. He warns that if they get there, he will have to obey Dalzel and act against them. He reveals his next plan is to steal Valeria, the four-year-old princess of Ingary, and that the two of them will somehow help him. He enchants the carpet not to follow, and flies away.
Chapter 15 Summary: “In Which the Travelers Arrive at Kingsbury”
Abdullah and the soldier remark that, though technically a Good Djinn, Hasruel seemed to be enjoying himself a lot. The soldier says they should go to Kingsbury anyway to warn the king about the princess: Seeing as he can’t marry her, they may as well aim for a reward. Abdullah flatters the carpet and tells it to take them to the city, ensuring they aren’t seen.
Kingsbury is very grand and wealthy. Hiding on a roof, they hear servants talking. There are lookouts for the Strangian soldier, so they change their clothes and the soldier cuts his hair. The servants also reveal that the Royal Wizard already warned the king about the potential kidnapping despite some misadventure, so their plan to get a reward is stymied.
They manage to get a room at an inn with Abdullah’s gold and their disguised clothes. They decide that they can still offer useful information, as they know about the castle in the air and all the other princesses. They decide to pay one of Ingary’s powerful wizards to help them. The innkeeper confirms that one of the Royal Wizards disappeared, but directs Abdullah to the other. The soldier stays behind, fearful of being recognized. He persuades Abdullah to leave the genie and the carpet in case the wizard tries to take them.
Midnight follows Abdullah to the house. The wizard’s wife, Lettie, answers the door. She immediately identifies Midnight as her sister, Sophie.
Chapter 16 Summary: “In Which Strange Things Befall Midnight and Whippersnapper”
Lettie and Wizard Suliman perform a complex spell to turn Midnight back into the human Sophie. Sophie explains what happened. Her husband is Howl, the other Royal Wizard. He saw in a divining spell that something powerful would steal his castle and, later, Princess Valeria, so he sent away his apprentices, but Sophie refused to leave. When the djinn came, he managed to get a warning to the king, and instructed his fire demon companion, Calcifer, to flee. He did the first thing he thought of to keep Sophie safe, turning her into a cat. She survived in cat form, giving birth to their child, Morgan.
Wizard Suliman reassures her that, thanks to Howl’s warning, he has made powerful wards to protect the princess. However, he worries that the kitten may also have been turned back by his spell. They spy on the soldier through the mirrors: Whippersnapper is now a crying human baby, to the soldier’s bafflement. At that moment, the wards all crumble—the djinn has used Suliman’s distraction to break through. Suliman leaves for the castle. Abdullah, Lettie, and Sophie rush to the inn room. It is empty.
Chapter 17 Summary: “In Which Abdullah at Last Reaches the Castle in the Air”
Though the soldier has taken Morgan and the genie, the carpet remains. Constables arrive looking for the soldier and Abdullah. Sophie and Abdullah decide to go after the soldier and Morgan using the carpet, while Lettie, who is pregnant but also a witch, stays behind to help Wizard Suliman.
The carpet circles upwards. They realize the soldier must have instructed the genie to take him after the djinn to the castle, hoping to save the princess for a reward. Sophie doesn’t remember the genie, as she wasn’t able to see it properly. However she theorizes that Hasruel meant for Abdullah to have it. As the air thins, Sophie magically instructs it to gather round them so they can breathe better. They break through a layer of freezing cloud into a beautiful warm landscape, like an ocean dotted with islands made of clouds. The castle stands on one of them, constantly shifting its shape.
The carpet manages to get past the djinn’s many angel guards into the castle gardens, where it collapses exhausted, finally on solid ground. Abdullah carries it with him as they set off toward the castle. Sophie indignantly notes that the huge gardens used to be their little bathroom. Abdullah is embarrassed to find they resemble his daydreams: Hasruel is mocking him.
Chapters 14-17 Analysis
This section begins with a conscious consideration of Personal Agency Versus Fate: Abdullah and the soldier debate whether agency is possible, and the best way to go about it. The mechanism of making a wish using the genie is a microcosm for this discussion, as the soldier says, “Why not make the most useful wish you can, get what you want out of it and put up with whatever he does to send it wrong?” (166).
The soldier’s suggestion offers a specific example of Abdullah’s overall struggle: The soldier acknowledges that you can’t control other people or forces, but argues that defeatism is counterproductive, and the only way to deal with this is to focus on what you can control—your own choices. Once Abdullah switches to this approach and begins to proactively pursue Flower-in-the-Night again, the action rapidly escalates, moving the plot forward toward the denouement of the last section.
Multiple plot twists reveal the truth behind what’s going on, laying out a clear task for Abdullah to complete in order to finish his quest. He finally knows where Flower-in-the-Night is and why she was kidnapped. Wynne Jones structures these revelations toward the ends of chapters, using cliffhangers to build the pace. For example, chapters finish with Hasruel flying off, the reveal of Sophie, and the soldier vanishing with the genie and the baby. This heightens the stakes in preparation for the climactic last section.
Most of the events that unfold are outside of Abdullah’s control or are completely unpredictable to him, as the soldier foresaw. For example, the djinn is so powerful he can’t get the carpet to follow; the reveal that the cats are actually humans is not factored in to his plans, which leads to further chaos as Hasruel uses this distraction to kidnap another princess. However, now that Abdullah is proactively making choices again he is still able to use these circumstances to move toward his goals. He is able to conjure Hasruel to offer an explanation, giving him the information he needs, and he and Sophie are able to combine forces to reach the castle together, using Abdullah’s way with the carpet, and her magic. The soldier is proved right that it is always worth trying to choose your fate.
These revelations also add to the theme of Navigating the Lines between Fiction and Reality. In this section, the fairytale world and reality are brought together through the reveal that Abdullah’s daydreams were coming true because of Hasruel’s magic. This creates internal logic for the fantastical events of the story, enabling Abdullah to interact with them, as the apparent fiction of his daydreams unfolding around him all comes from real events. Wynne Jones shows the circular influence between fiction and reality: Fiction reflects reality, and can also influence it, as it does literally for Abdullah.
As well as learning the truth about his daydreams, The Importance of Learning from Experience is an important part of Abdullah’s journey in this section in other ways. His new understanding of his daydreams and his discussion about fate with the soldier help him learn to take action even if it involves risks; he is forced to think on his feet and respond to circumstances. He still makes mistakes: He hasn’t adequately learned that the soldier is not to be trusted, even though the section starts with the soldier manipulating him into getting his own way. However, this ties back into the idea that one can only control one’s own choices, not other people’s.
Abdullah also learns to challenge some of his ideas about gender. When Sophie first turns back, Abdullah’s reaction to her character shows his misogyny: He finds her “uncomfortably strong-minded for a woman—almost as bad as his father’s first wife’s sister Fatima” (197). This shows he has set ideas about behavior and presentation based on gender. It also undermines his views of his overbearing family in the first section, highlighting that they are informed by his prejudices.
However, later in this section he relies on Lettie and Sophie to take control of the situation when the soldier absconds with Morgan and the genie while he is being pursued. He decides he is actually very glad they are both “strong-minded,” coming round to the idea that this is not necessarily a bad thing. He is still learning, as his opinion is still very much dependent on his relationship to individual women: He tolerates or is positive about Sophie or Flower-in-the-Night, but is still sexist toward women that are not serving his aims, such as Fatima or the nieces. However, Wynne Jones shows that he can quickly reassess his views and begin to broaden his mind.
