5. When Mrs. Graham reads Claire’s tea leaves and palm, she deprecates her own psychic skills, saying that prognostication is more a matter of “reading” common-sense observations about people. And yet what she says about the divided marriage line in Claire’s hand (34) does come true. The novel is full of ancient, primitive superstitions and practices that the rational, skeptical Claire largely rejects—and yet her experiences suggest that at least some of the ancient ways contain some inexplicable truths, none the less true for being inexplicable. In this novel, what seems to you to be the dominant impression of the old beliefs and folkways—their barbarism and ignorance, or their secret access to truths of which the modern world has lost sight?
6. The horror of Claire’s terrifying trip through the stones is striking. “There was a noise of battle, and the cries of dying men and shattered horses (49).” She frequently recalls the horrors of World War II. Is she re-experiencing some of that trauma? (If you are re-reading Outlander after having read the sequels, do you think that this carnage is associated with any one battle in particular? If so, which one? Or does it make more sense to see it as a universal expression of pain engendered by violence?)
7. When Claire is apprehended by Black Jack Randall, she is surprised by his dragoon’s uniform (which she believes to be a film costume) and shocked by his startling resemblance to her husband Frank. But she is also keenly aware of other details, including his scent of lavender, this scent growing in significance throughout this novel (and in the sequels) because of its subsequent effect on Jamie. A frequently-noted feature of Gabaldon’s prose style is her skill in bringing a scene to life, not merely through visual details, but through her generous use of realistic odors – especially in the 18th c. episodes, where hygiene standards differed significantly from ours. What descriptions in Outlander are particular memorable for you because of the vivid focus on one or more smells? Is this realism part of their appeal for you? (Be generous with your club: include page numbers for all references.)
8. When Claire meets Dougal and his men, the scene is almost cinematic: the scene builds slowly as the men puzzle over Claire’s identity and odd clothing. We do not see Jamie, huddled in pain in the corner, for several pages. However, when the episode builds to its climax, Claire takes charge of the situation, ordering Rupert out of the way to avoid injuring Jamie further, resetting Jamie’s shoulder, and disinfecting his wounds. The men, perhaps surprisingly, allow her to do so. This is the first episode in which we see two recurring conflicts: first, a conflict between 20th c. scientific medical practices and 18th c. assumptions; and second, the conflict between a modern, educated woman’s expectation that she should be taken seriously and the tendency of 18th c. men to assume she may be merely a whore or otherwise insignificant. What accounts for their willingness to recognize—at least temporarily—her authority in this situation? Is it the force of her character, or merely their desperation about Jamie’s injuries?
9. After the skirmish about which Claire warned the Scots at Cocknammon Rock (which indicates that Claire had been paying more attention to Frank’s history lessons than we thought), Jamie faints from his wounds. His faint does not just give Claire another opportunity to display her medical skills; it introduces a gender reversal, in which Gabaldon plays with and undermines the formulaic conventions of romance novels. Female protagonists are expected to faint prettily, but Claire was knocked unconscious by Murtagh, and we don’t expect young warriors to faint. If you are familiar with the conventions of romance writing, identify some other aspects of what you expect in a romance novel. Then reconsider your list when you discuss Chapter 15, “The Revelations of the Bridal Chamber.”
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 18thc., 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 been touched profoundly by an insight from a poem, song, or piece of fiction? How?
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 freeze stiff before ye’re done talking.” Does their insolence to Randall increase or decrease the danger he poses to them? Do you see this verbal daring as heroic?
23. Dougal tells her the complete story of the flogging as a way of illustrating Jamie’s character to her prior to the marriage, and also hints at the sexual interest Randall has in Jamie. From a purely practical perspective, would Claire have been safer marrying Rupert, ludicrous as this sounds? Dougal is clearly upset by Randall’s brutality to Claire at Brockton. But how much of his scheme can be attributed to the fact that the MacKenzies would never accept a chief whose wife was an Englishwoman? In terms of his own political ambitions, is Dougal killing two birds with one stone here? Despite his Machiavellian instincts, some ancient spirituality lingers in Dougal: why does he take Claire to St. Ninian’s spring?
24. Claire and Jamie’s wedding—in the same church in which she married Frank—has touching and comic moments to it. What details do you find most striking or memorable?
25. In Chapter 15, “The Revelations of the Bridal Chamber,” the awkwardness of the bride and groom delays the consummation considerably, but also gives them an opportunity to learn more about one another’s families and personal experiences. As they sit side by side drinking wine and touching, what important insights do they learn about one another? How important is this ability to talk to one another in their growing relationship?
26. On their wedding night, Jamie says, “There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I’ll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me. But what I would ask of ye—when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I’ll promise ye the same. We have nothing now between us, save—respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree? (273)” And do you readers agree that a good marriage can have secrets?
27. Gender and genre: Claire gently educates the virginal Jamie, who had been misinformed by Murtagh that it is best to get the act over with quickly, as women do not enjoy sex. It has often been observed that this novel does not fit readers’ expectations of generic romances. Among other things, your group might wish to consider the age disparity of the protagonists, the unusual circumstances of their “courtship,” the subsequent revelation that the male is a virgin, and the continuation of the story well beyond the marriage itself. As well as illustrating a difference between 18th c. and 20th c. expectations by having the older, experienced female take the lead, Gabaldon undermines yet another romance convention. “As yet too hungry and too clumsy for tenderness, still he made love with a sort of unflagging joy that made me think that male virginity might be a highly underrated commodity (287).” Claire also suggests that her husband Frank, despite his sophistication and polish as a lover, had not discovered some aspects of her sexuality that Jamie had (289, 438). She still intends, at this point, to return to Frank somehow. How would this new dimension of her experience complicate her life with Frank?
