Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [416]
15. Why is Jamie so much more comfortable with Claire seeing the scars from the horrendous flogging he endured than he is with even old friends like Alec MacMahon?
16. After Claire discovers Jamie and Laoghaire kissing, Alec shrewdly remarks that Jamie needs a woman, and that Laoghaire will be a girl when she is fifty (150). What evidence do you see of her immaturity in this book? If you have not read the sequels, how do you think this prediction might play out? (And if you have read them, how does it play out?) How much sympathy or criticism do you have for Laoghaire in this novel? Why?
17. When Claire meets Geillis Duncan in Chapter 7, notice the cluster of references to poison: Geilie immediately identifies Claire’s mushrooms as poisonous, jokes about poisoning husbands, discusses an abortifacient herb, and before Claire returns to the Castle—where there is an outbreak of food poisoning because of some tainted beef—Geilie tells her that Hamish is Jamie’s child. This breath-taking lie is almost Shakespearean: the poison-in-the-ear motif in Hamlet refers not only to the way Claudius killed Old Hamlet, but also to the climate of destructive rumors and falsehoods that contaminate the kingdom. Consider the other, later toxic falsehoods in this novel: which ones have the most serious consequences? For instance, consider Dougal’s telling Jamie that Jenny was with child by Randall and by a second British soldier; consider Randall’s persecution of Jamie for the murder of a sergeant-major whom Randall himself had killed; consider Laoghaire’s lie to Claire that Geillis was ill and wanted her to come, thereby luring her into the witchcraft arrest, and Geillis’ lie to Jamie that Claire was barren.
18. In the episode with the tanner’s lad, we see the petty vindictiveness of Father Bain (to be contrasted with the wisdom and compassion of the monks at St. Anne de Beaupré later), a hint of the cruelty of the mob (a foreshadowing of the witchcraft hysteria), and the first of the episodes in which Claire puts Jamie in danger by asking him to assist in freeing the tanner’s lad. Is she right or wrong to do so? Why?
19. When Claire attempts to escape during the commotion of the Gathering, she again endangers Jamie, albeit inadvertently. He has been trying very hard to avoid being present—where either his failure to take the oath (possibly signifying disloyalty to the whole clan) or swearing his oath to the MacKenzies (signifying he is one of them, and therefore a possible rival for the chieftainship)—could ignite the turbulent clan factions and result in his death. He has to return her to the Castle, and Claire, who does not comprehend immediately, later understands and deeply regrets the position she has put him in. How do you read this: are you sympathetic to or critical of her single-minded focus on escaping that endangers Jamie? Have you ever inadvertently put someone else in danger or been endangered yourself by someone else’s unwitting actions? And why is Jamie so willing to subject himself to harm and danger in order to protect women?
Part THREE On the Road
20. Dougal’s exploitation of Jamie’s flogging to stir public support for the Jacobites is clearly manipulative. Dougal, however, is a complex character, and even Jamie has profoundly mixed feelings about him. Do you think there is any justification for what Dougal is doing to Jamie? Does he understand how humiliating the experience (which Claire, significantly, calls a “crucifixion”) is?
21. Although the evidence is mounting that Black Jack Randall is a sadistic bully, Claire is still stunned—because of his remarkable resemblance to Frank—that he hits her. How might the resemblance complicate her memory of and love for Frank?
22. After he punches her, Claire’s contemptuous response to Randall’s question “Have you anything to say?” is “Your wig is crooked (238).” When Dougal describes Jamie’s great courage and composure during his flogging, he remembers Jamie’s insulting “I’m afraid I’ll