Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [415]
10. Once they are safely inside the castle, Claire is finally able to process some of the shock and grief of her disturbing experience. Weeping for Frank, she is comforted by the young stranger whose wounds she has tended and who has shared his horse with her. Her reaction as he soothes her: “slowly I began to quiet a bit, as Jamie stroked my neck and back, offering me the comfort of his broad, warm chest. My sobs lessened and I began to calm myself, leaning tiredly into the curve of his shoulder. No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I’d let him ride me anywhere (92).” In what subsequent moments in their relationship do images of horses and riding recur? What do these images ultimately suggest about their relationship?
11. Part One ends with Claire settling into Castle Leoch with clothing more suitable to the 18c., thanks to Mrs. Fitz, a growing sense of safety with the young Jamie MacTavish, but an increasing—and horrifying—fear that she has indeed gone back in time two centuries. This fear is confirmed when she snoops in Colum’s letters, where she finds a fresh one with the date 20 April 1743 (98). What character traits are evident in her reaction to this discovery? Have you ever made an utterly shocking discovery requiring that you fake, as Claire did, calmness and equanimity? Were you able to do so?
Part TWO Castle Leoch
12. Claire learns a good deal about life in Castle Leoch: she enjoys the musical entertainment and bardic story-telling, acquires a respect for Colum’s leadership skills and for his courage in bearing the pain of his disability, feels useful working in the herb beds and tending to the ailments of the residents, and once more tends to Jamie. This time, his injuries are sustained in a gallant offer to save Laoghaire from the disgrace of a public beating requested by her father and agreed to by Colum for her inappropriately flirtatious behavior—a state of affairs apparently accepted by everyone in this patriarchal culture. This episode dramatizes for Claire the brutality of this patriarchal world, the courage of young Jamie, the possibility of a romance between Jamie and Laoghaire, and the utility of leeches, a medical intervention demonstrated to good effect by Mrs. Fitz. But of everything Claire is learning, the most important probably concerns details about the life of the mysterious young Jamie. Although she is shocked to learn that there is a price on his head for murder, why is she not really alarmed? How is their friendship evolving?
13. While cleaning the appalling mess out of Davie Beaton’s closet and deciding which medications might actually have some utility and which are useless or perhaps even dangerous, Claire has time to consider her own predicament and the terrifying images from her passage through the stones. She remembers deliberately fighting away from some, and then wonders, “Had I fought towards others? I had some consciousness of fighting toward a surface of some kind. Had I actually chosen to come to this particular time because it offered some sort of haven from that whirling maelstrom (129)?” She cannot answer that question at the moment; can you? From what you now know about her relationship with Jamie, do you believe that some sort of unconscious choice—his or hers—was involved, or was the timing purely random?
14. Consider the songs and supernatural folktales Claire hears during the entertainment in the castle (159); she notes the pattern that the transported women are so often gone for about 200 years—but do sometimes return home. Applying the lessons of the poetry to herself, she acquires hope and courage to try to escape through Craigh na Dun again. Readers of Diana Gabaldon’s fiction often express gratitude that emotionally powerful scenes in her books have empowered them to make positive changes in their own private lives. Has your life ever