Drums: More "Women's Issues" (Pt. 2)

The writing of this post resembled a research paper--I can only hope it doesn't read like one.  Here, I try to give an overview of how the Outlander books build up a preoccupation with sexuality, bound up with fertility, that develops, in later books, into a curious near-feminist statement on birth control and reproduction.

The Early Books

From the first novel, Outlander, Gabaldon's novels have been focused on reproduction and fertility in one way or another.  At first, the focus is negative--that is, the absence of fertility. Claire wants to get pregnant. She has a duty  to get pregnant.  But she can't get pregnant.  The novel ends on a positive note for Jamie and Claire.

Geilie Duncan, on the other hand, does get pregnant in Outlander, and does so deliberately, in order to have a hold on the father.  I believe that there is also the implication that she dabbles in abortifacients, for her own unwanted offspring and for other women.  Her pregnancy is both her means of exposure and her means of buying Claire's escape (Outlander) and eventually her own (as Claire learns in Voyager).

Fertility becomes a problem for Claire and those around her in wholly new ways in Dragonfly in Amber, as Claire experiences pregnancy complications, and as she befriends a coquette who finds herself pregnant by her lover at an inopportune time, and a young girl who is completely ignorant of sex and its ties to reproduction.  In these contexts, and in her work at L'Hopital des Anges, Claire first encounters and contemplates Eighteenth-century abortion, and first teaches sex-ed (of a sort).   Nevertheless, Claire's advice to Mary after an interrupted rape is not textbook Twentieth-Century advice:

"Am I going to have a baby?" she blurted out, looking  up fearfully.  "You said..."
"No," I said , as firmly as I could. "You aren't. He wasn't able to...finish." In the folds of my skirt, I crossed both pairs of fingers, hoping fervently that I was right. The chances were very small indeed, but such freaks had been known to happen.  (Dragonfly 360)

Claire is clearly hedging here, but the certainty she expresses to Mary to prevent the girl from panicking contrasts directly with her stance on coitus interruptus in Drums of Autumn, and although the two situations are different--in one case the man is forced to discontinue the incomplete act while in the other, he does reach climax--the risk of pregnancy is similar in each case, speaking biologically rather than statistically.

Eighteenth and Twentieth Century Men and Fertility

In previous books, the relationship between men and fertility is straightforward:  Frank wants a child of his own (though he's not too sure he could love an adopted one); Jamie wants a child of his own. In Voyager, things get more complex for men and women, in the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

In Voyager, a good part of the action takes place in the Twentieth Century, which generally manifests its own particular form of sexism under the veneer of more enlightened attitudes toward sexuality.  Frank has learned that he can, indeed, love another man's child--particularly since he is infertile himself.  Nevertheless, he manifests Twentieth Century chauvenism by philandering while staying with Claire while they raise Bree.  This wouldn't seem to lend itself to judgment of Bree, but he seems to presume that she is as guilty of promiscuous tendencies as any undergraduate of the college, stating bluntly that "she'll be off with the first fellow who--" (what, we don't know).  (If Bree only knew, she might not think that Frank would be kinder to her than Jamie, when Jamie calls her a wanton in Drums of Autumn...)  When Claire interrupts Frank, defending Bree, she adds a certain Sexual Revolution "wisdom":  "Besides, all young people experiment, that’s how they learn. You can’t keep her swaddled in cotton wool all her life”  (Voyager 268).  The curious thing is that she upholds Bree's right to experiment--suggesting that Bree might, in fact, be "off with the first fellow who..." and at the same time defends Bree's virtue.  Frank continues with a particularly nasty bit of racism.

While Claire is living with philandering Frank in the Twentieth Century, Jamie adopts some of Claire's erstwhile Eighteenth-Century roles, namely sexual education (albeit in an ironic sense), critique of his century's (Biblical?) view of women, and acknowledment of the dangers of childbearing.  All of these contexts interact in interesting ways with his own masculinity, showing clearly how female identity and its constraints and dangers influence how men are able to be--and expected to be--men.  The most poignant damage done to Jamie's masculinity happens through the person of Geneva, who blackmails him into sex, conceives his child (perhaps intentionally, as she "looks at him with new interest" when Jamie warns her to summon him when she is least fertile), and dies in childbirth.  When explaining the situation to Claire, he confesses his guilt, which carries the realization that his sexuality, which he has already felt as shameful because of Geneva, is also deadly:

“No,” he said softly. “She  …   wanted me. I should have found a way— should have stopped her, but I could not. She wished me to lie wi’ her. And I did, and  …   she died of it.” He did look down then, long lashes hiding his eyes. “I am guilty of her death, before God; perhaps the more guilty— because I did not love her.”  (Voyager 940-941).

Claire's Mission 

In both centuries, it is up to Claire to be the voice of Enlightment as regards sexuality in general, and contraception in particular.  So Voyager functions as a kind of primer of Claire's mature knowledge of and philosophies on sex and reproduction, influenced by her medical training against the backrdrop of emerging Twentieth Century attitudes toward sex and their culmination in the 1960s.  Claire's return to the past represents not only a reunion with Jamie, and the continued consummation of their love, but also a mission of sorts--to spread sexual education to 18th Century women, thus improving their overall condition (we learn in Drums that this has been a Twentieth Century mission of hers as well--more on this later).  It starts with her observation of the affects of childbearing on women who were ignorant of hygiene and nutrition:

Nineteen when the eldest was born, and Maisri was ten now. She was twenty-nine. And I, blessed by good nutrition, hygiene, and dentistry, not worn down by multiple pregnancies and hard physical labor, looked a good deal younger than she.  (Voyager 311-312)

The dangers of childbith, and the detriment to men and women that come from those dangers, are so much a part of Voyager that Jamie picks up that traditional wartime rhetoric--the comparison between childbirth and battle:

“I’m a man, Sassenach,” he said, very softly. “If I thought there was a choice  …   then I maybe couldna do it. Ye dinna need to be so brave about things if ye ken ye canna help it, aye?” He looked at me then, with a faint smile. “Like a woman in childbirth, aye? Ye must do it, and it makes no difference if you’re afraid— ye’ll do it. It’s only when ye ken ye can say no that it takes courage.”  (Voyager 877)

A less comfortable revelation than his night with Geneva, Jamie's failed marriage to Laoghaire makes clear, by degrees, that women stand not only to lose their looks, their health, and their life, but also sexual pleasure.   Influenced by her mother's warnings and fears of Jamie, Laoghaire's daughter Marsali, who has seen that Claire enjoys sex, confides her fears that childbearing will prevent her enjoyment of the marriage act.  Marsali is comparatively well-educated on the topic when she poses her question to Claire:

     “Weel, it’s to do wi’ bairns,” she explained. “And how ye get them.”
     I raised one eyebrow. “Your mother didn’t tell you where babies come from?”
     She snorted impatiently, her small blond brows knotted in fierce scorn. “O’ course I ken where they come from! Any fool knows that much. Ye let a man put his prick between your legs, and there’s the devil to pay, nine months later. What I want to know is how ye don’t get them.”

Specifically, she confesses to Claire, anticipating her marriage to Fergus, “I want to like it.... When we get to the prick part”  (Voyager 706-707).  Marsali's question leads Claire into her first explicit lesson on contraception, 18th Century style:

     “So there is a way?”
     “There are a lot of ways, and unfortunately most of them don’t work,” I told her, with a pang of regret for my prescription pad and the reliability of contraceptive pills. Still, I remembered well enough the advice of the maîtresses sage-femme, the experienced midwives of the Hôpital des Anges, where I had worked in Paris twenty years before. (Voyager 711)

[....] 

     “Here,” I said, pulling out a large chunk of cleaned sponge. I took one of the thin surgical knives from the fitted slots in the lid of the box and carefully sliced off several thin pieces, about three inches square. I searched through the box again and found the small bottle of tansy oil, with which I carefully saturated one square under Marsali’s fascinated gaze.
     “All right,” I said. “That’s about how much oil to use. If you haven’t any oil, you can dip the sponge in vinegar— even wine will work, in a pinch. You put the bit of sponge well up inside you before you go to bed with a man— mind you do it even the first time; you can get with child from even once.”  (Voyager 711-712)

So here we have it--explicit instructions for the 18th Century contraceptive sponge.  And at the same time, the first really direct contraceptive propoganda, complete with the admonition that a woman can get pregnant even from the first time--which, by now, we have learned from Jamie and Geneva.  This is textbook sex ed, though interesting.  I would want to know whether this is a historically accurate birth control method (something I suppose Google would tell me--or the dreaded Wikipedia), and what the actual effectiveness is, given that Claire is recommending it as at least somewhat reliable from her Twentieth-Century authority and her Eighteenth-Century practical wisdom.

But more than that, I wonder about the role it plays in the novel.  It signals to the reader, certainly, that Claire is serious about contraception, and signals this in a big way.  Whereas there is commentary earlier in the books on the state of women who are burdened with multiple pregnancies, particularly in an age lacking in hygeine and nutrition, and action in the novel that dramaties the dangers of childbirth and its implications for men and women, when Claire actually dispenses birth control rather than providing commentary, the reader is asked to take notice in a whole new way.  The gesture not only says, "Unregulated birth is a problem for women," it provides the solution, backed by Claire's medical authority, Twentieth Century wisdom, and position as the central character in the Outlander novels.  Moreover, the action is presented as amoral.  There is no indication that the Church or religion condemn contraception, although there are a couple of digs at St. Paul for not particularly liking women.  Rather, there is a strange little scene when Claire visits her stillborn daughter Faith at the Hôpital des Anges:

As we walked slowly back, I noticed other small stones set here and there among the larger ones.
     “Are those all children?” I asked, a little surprised.
     “The children of the nuns,” she said matter-of-factly. I gaped at her in astonishment, and she shrugged, elegant and wry as always.
     “It happens,” she said. She walked a few steps farther, then added, “Not often, of course.” She gestured with her stick around the confines of the cemetery. “This place is reserved for the sisters, a few benefactors of the Hôpital— and those they love.”
     “The sisters or the benefactors?”
     “The sisters...."  (Voyager 629)

This clearly means that the sisters have had tristes, and that those unions have resulted in children.  The fate of the children is less certain.  Did they simply die?  It might be strange for so many to have died in childhood, though perhaps not.  The uniformity of the size of the graves suggests infanticide or abortion--sinister alternatives glossed over with a shrug and almost... understanding.  Not quite a divine pass, but definitely stopping short of narrative condemnation, since neither of these strong, authoritative women seems to condemn.

So why the contraceptive propoganda--why now, in the third book?  Why continuing throughout the series--even into the newest volume, due out in March?  What seems clear is that fertility is a preoccupation of the author--as well it might be for a female author.  As it is, in fact, for me. And there is no doubt that the novels romaniticize sexuality.  They do so, however, in a very specific way--by romanticizing near-impossible marital sexual passion and prowess.  If a reader isn't paying attention, however, good sex with a tall Scotsman might be mistaken for the union between Claire and Jamie, and it is a reality that there are many, many women--many young women certainly, and just as certainly women of other staeges of life--who are confused or deluded about sex--whatever "being confused about sex" means to my readers, who no doubt see sexuality and reproduction in a few different ways, complete with nuances.  The novels are not, I would say, feminist overall, but they do have this element of feminism:  the need to warn women about the reprocussions of sexual activity.  Perhaps it has to do with responsibility--the woman's, or the author's.  In the first two novels, Claire either fears herself barren, or carries a child.  So in the books in which sexuality carries such a locus of power, there is, in fact, very little emphasis on unwanted consequences.  So perhaps the lesson from Voyager forward is that Claire's barrenness shouldn't lure young women into false securiy?  What, in fact, is the reader supposed to glean from these lessons?

I do read them as a lesson for the reader--and one that is reemphasized, almost ad nauseum.  But for all that, there is still some ambiguity, and some room for the reader to negotiate levels of awareness of fertility and its power, use of birth control, and occasions of self-giving.  Jamie and Claire remain open--well, almost.  So the conflict between what is good for the woman according to Claire's wisdom, and what is powerful and vital, is played out between the other "power couple"--Brianna and Roger.

To be continued...

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Drums of Autumn (Outlander). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Drums: More "Women's Issues" (Pt. 1)

It's an ambitious title for a post, no? [Refers to a previous title] And a long time coming.  It's the post that I really wanted to write when I intially finished the books, but the more I reread, the less I want to write about it because I've already got it all worked out in my head and now I want to move past it.  But it's very much a part of the Outlander books.  So here goes...

One thing that struck me when I was initially reading Outlander is that the novel did not toe the feminist line by denouncing historical gender roles as necessarily oppressive and unjust.  Rather, it is often the case that the historical limitations on what women could do in society, the need for women to be protected by their men (most often from other men), are validated, and the lot of women not so terrible--or at any rate, no worse than what men had to endure.  A good example of this is the should-be-scandalous spanking scene.  Reading the Little House Books to my daughters, I recently realized that the justification in those books for corporal punishment was much the same as Jamie's justification to Claire in Outlander, and while she is his wife rather than his child, the fact that her disobediance did endanger everyone does suggest the need for some type of consequence--at least in that society.  Repeatedly through the first two books, Claire's twentieth-century headstong nature, while one of her strengths, proves to be out-of bounds and dangerous to her and to those around her.  In the struggle between female independence and history, history prevails.

I was also struck after a while--though not at first--by representations of 18th Century women and their fertility.  Claire is the only major female character in Outlander, and she is unable to become pregnant--first in the Twentieth Century, and then in the Eighteeth Century.  She seems to be barren.  In the Twentieth Century, she and Frank want a child.  In the Eighteenth Century, she is expected to want a child, and while she is a bit more ambivalent about the prospect, she is still open to the possibility of life--and after a while, she wants to give Jamie a child.  The first book, then, treats fertility as something desirable, if risky.  Even the fecundity of Jenny and Ian (the elder) is basically a good thing, though she is weary.  Jenny wouldn't have it any other way, and expects to bear many children.  In Drums of Autumn, Jamie articulates it very simply in response to the implication, stated by his own (unknowing) offspring, that Scots breed like rabbits:

“Scottish families are sometimes large, aye.” Jamie plucked a wren’s down feather from the small box and laid it delicately against the shank of his hook. “We think children a blessing.”

However, as the books progress, the narrative seems to make an effort to correct the error inadvertantly committed in Outlander, the book that Diana Gabaldon wrote, according to her own account, as an experiment, never completely expecting it to be published.  It is a risky novel, and by implication (as a discourse on the dangers of pregnancy and the need to limit births creeps in) one of the bold and perhaps inadvisable moves (Books 2 through 7 suggest) is the depiction of unrestricted, unprotected sex.  It is perhaps the prominance of the birth control message in the subsequent books that make it seem not only like a backlash against its absence in the first book, but also like a particular, pointed message aimed at the reader.  Don't think, the books seem to suggest, that this is the right way to live.  Even Claire's Twentieth Century pregnancy is risky, and Claire denies medicated childbirth because she is afraid that she will die in childbirth, even with available medical interventions.

The discourse of birth control does not, however, revolve around Claire, though Claire is the source of much of the emotional and physical vulnerability that surrounds pregnancy and childbirth, including miscarriage.  In fact, it is striking that the sexual relationship between Jamie and Claire--which is the ideal around which the novels are built--remains largely untainted by concerns with birth control. Once or twice we do learn that the pre-menopausal Claire is not taking chances this time around, but for other characters, birth control is much more a part of the story, and in the case of Bree and Roger, it is much more an anxiety of the male.  More on this later, because I don't think it actually works out in poor Roger's favor.  The message we get, increasingly, is that children are good, childbirth, pregnancy, and unregulated births are dangerous to women and undermine their autonomy.  However, the contradictory message that we get is that children are good--very good--much to be desired, that children strenghten a family and provide a powerful bond between men and women that is not always respected, and that men for whom female fertility is a source of anxiety are comparatively weak.  This will require some proving, I know.  So my feeling is that the narrative of birth control is still somewhat reactionary, which makes it all that much more artificial to me--again, as if the reader is being cautioned not to see unrestrained sexuality as an absolute good.  If there's a discourse on chastity, I haven't found it--such would be the Catholic remedy for the tendency toward licentiousness.

But what begins in Dragonfly in Amber surfaces in a big way in Drums of Autumn.  In my next post, I plan to review how the theme builds.  Eventually, I will take a closer look at some of the scenes, dialogues, and curcumstances that build into the discourse on birth control.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Drums of Autumn (Outlander) (Kindle Locations 10291-10292). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Dragonfly and Voyager: A Portrait of Professor Randall Pt. 2

I'm going to give writing about Frank one more go, but it's not working out very well.  I have Frank post after Frank post piled up, because there's a lot to say.  I just don't feel like tacking it.  But since I've already started this, here we go...

In Dragonfly in Amber, Claire has a dream.  This is before the reader understands that there is a closer link between dream and reality--and especially a connection between loved ones who have been displaced in time--than there is between dreaming and the subconscious.  Dreams are real, for Claire and Jamie in particular, although Jamie's are more often memories than Claire's.  In this instance, Claire's dream is of Frank, and whether it is the product of Claire's knowledge of Frank, or an actual vision of a class that takes place at a place in time that is parallel to when or where in time Claire is with Jamie, the reader has no reason to doubt that the dream represents Frank as he really is.  In this dream, the reader gets an introductory picture of Frank as a lecturer--and it is this view that the final words between Frank and Claire evokes as the only other evidence of Frank's teaching persona.  Although I am not convinced that this dream is supposed to be understood as a sending or some kind of realistic vision of Frank*, as a product of Claire's own subconscious, it can still be understood as representative of the real Frank.

As Claire falls asleep, she sees Frank's face.  He is lecturing, at London University, about the difference between "[o]bjects of vertu" and "objects of use." He has a catalog of objects, which is important, because we learn in Voyager that he has a way of imbuing objects with his being--a talent that Brianna learns from him in some way.  The objects, borrowed from the British museum, are a silver candlestick, a "French counter-box," and a "white clay pipe," an "English gold-mounted scent bottle, a gilt-bronze inkstand with gadrooned lid, a cracked horn spoon, and a small marble clock topped with swans drinking."  He also has "a row of painted miniatures."

The objects are not as important for my purposes as the details of his behavior.  He handles the objects with a sensuality that is palpable--and it soon becomes clear that he is not simply doing so for the benefit of the objects--he is performing:

His long fingers touched the rim of a silver candlestick and the sun from the window sparked from the metal, as though his touch were electric.

And for whom is he performing, but his students?:

     He put his pipe to his mouth and pursed his lips around the stem, puffing out his cheeks, brows raised comically.  There was a muffled giggle from the audience, and he smiled and laid the pipe down.

He is "absorbed" by the objects, but plays to the students, and seems particularly aware of the attentions of the female students in particular.  When he does focus on a male student, it is a very practiced, artificial gesture:

     "The art, and the objects of vertu" - he waved a hand over the glittering array - "these are what we most often see, the decorations of a society. And why not?" He picked an intelligent-looking brown-haired boy to address. An accomplished lecturer's trick; pick one member of the audience to talk to as though you were alone with him. A moment later, shift to another. And everyone in the room will feel the focus of your remarks. 

 A moment later, he picks another female:

     "These are pretty things, after all." A finger's touch set the swans on the clock revolving, curved necks stately in twofold procession. "Worth preserving. But who'd bother keeping an old, patched tea cozy, or a worn-out automobile-tire?" A pretty blonde in glasses this time, who smiled and tittered briefly in response. (189)

And his attentions are not always positive, but verge on mockery, even if delivered with a smile:

     Now a middle-aged woman, scribbling frantically to catch every word, hardly aware of the singular regard upon her. The lines creased beside smiling hazel eyes.
     "You needn't take down everything, Miss Smith," he chided. "It's an hour's lecture, after all - your pencil will never last."
     The woman blushed and dropped her pencil, but smiled shyly in answer to the friendly grin on Frank's lean, dark face. (190)

Frank thrives on the manipulation of the crowd:

He had them now, everyone warmed by the glow of good humor, attention attracted by the small flashes of gilt and glitter. Now they would follow him without flagging or complaint, along the path of logic and into the thickets of discussion. A certain tenseness left his neck as he felt the students' attention settle and fix on him. (190)

Each time he delivers a successful quip, he relaxes a bit more.

Frank's willingness to engage in sexual banter becomes evident as he chooses a "plump blond girl" to unsettle with his question about perfume:

      "And what about those people? We think of historical persons as something different than ourselves, sometimes halfway mythological. But someone played games with this" - the slender index finger stroked the counter-box - "a lady used this" - nudged the scent bottle - "dabbing scent behind her ears, on her wrists… where else do you ladies dab scent?" 

     Lifting his head suddenly, he smiled at the plump blond girl in the front row, who blushed, giggled, and touched herself demurely just above the V of her blouse. 

    "Ah, yes. Just there. Well, so did the lady who owned this." (190-191)

And he responds in kind when another female student makes her own advances:

     Still smiling at the girl, he unstoppered the scent bottle and passed it gently under his nose. 

     "What is it, Professor? Arpege?" Not so shy, this student; dark-haired, like Frank, with gray eyes that held more than a hint of flirtation. 

     He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring over the mouth of the bottle. 

     "No. It's L'Heure Bleu. My favorite." (191)

I'm reminded of Indiana Jones lecturing, except that Dr. Jones always seemed unsettled by his female students' attentions--Frank thrives on it.

As the scene of the dream closes, Frank says, looking at a miniature that is a mirror of Claire--either literally or in some other dream-like sense--"once… once, she was real."  In Voyager, Claire's words echo his, creating a kind of cross-volume parallelism:

"I did love you. Once. I did.” (Voyager 273)

The dream-scene in Dragonfly makes lecturing an act of seduction for Frank, and given what we know of his easy adultery after Claire's return (and likely dalliances before she returned, and even during the War), this teaching persona registers as--well, creepy and inappropriate.  From a decidedly 21st Century perspective, it feels like sexual harassment at the most, and at the least, invasive.

Voyager reveals more details about Frank's relationship with his students.  First, Claire recognizes the allure his female students feel, and no wonder, given the lecture-as-seduction mode:

I pulled away and sat up, turning on the light. Frank lay blinking up at me, dark hair disheveled. It had gone gray at the temples, giving him a distinguished air that seemed to have alarming effects on the more susceptible of his female students. (266)

He treats Claire like a student, revealing an attitude that is not all seduction, but also condescension and impatience:

“Do be reasonable, Claire.” He looked down his nose, giving me Treatment A, long-suffering patience, reserved for students appealing failing grades.  (267)

His fears for Brianna in Claire's care speak of his actual opinions of the students he is not engaged in seducing at the moment:

“If you’d seen what I’d seen at the university— the drinking, the drugging, the  …”
     “I do see it,” I said through my teeth. “At fairly close range in the emergency room. Bree is not likely to—”
     “She damn well is! Girls have no sense at that age— she’ll be off with the first fellow who—”  (267-268)

At the same time, his opinion of Bree's character and her willpower suggest a low overall opinion of women--one that is borne up by other non-teaching-related examples.

His role as professor gives him access to women, and his lecturing is a seduction.  Overall, Frank seems unable to acknowledge boundaries where his power is concerned--one type of power (intellectual) bleeds into another (sexual).

Meanwhile, Claire's role as his wife, and as a faculty wife, is one lacking in power:

“What should I have done? Steamed open your mail and waved the letters under your nose? Made a scene at the faculty Christmas party? Complained to the Dean?” (269)

To keep her own dignity, she pretends an indifference to his seductions that she does not feel--quite--while he performs to the crowd.

*Some readers--like the ones on the GoodReads forums for the Outlander books, have suggested that this dream is a premonition, as other dreams throughout the series link Jamie and Claire in the past and future.  I resist this interpretation because the dream-link is a convention of the novels that emerges only in later books--Voyager is really the first with the clear dream-link, and it is first a link between Claire and Jaime.  I also find the timing and psychology troubling--when in Claire's brief absence would a scene occur in which Frank flirtatiously displays her image to an undergraduate lecture class?  And I don't find it credible that Frank would have harbored historic evidence of Claire's time travel unbeknownst to Claire.  There is also the small matter of the portrait becoming a mirror to Claire in her dream--this dream really registers as a dream.

Voyager: Jamie Teaches Sex Ed

The Outlander novels, on the whole, are preoccupied with sexual education.  There aren't just scenes of sex; there are instructional discussions of sex, sexuality, and matters of reproduction that occur (I believe) in all of the books, beginning as early as Outlander--I'll come back to that in a minute.

In Dragonfly in Amber, for example, Claire--with her 20th Century knowledge, her medical knowledge, and her sexual experience, corrects Mary Hawkins' misperceptions that Frenchmen do anything different from Englishmen or Scotsmen do in bed:

"Well," I said matter-of-factly, "there are only so many things you can do in bed with a man, after all.  And since I see quite a large number of children about the cite, I'd assume that even Frenchmen are fairly well versed in the orthodox methods."
     "Oh! Children.... well, yes, of course," she said vaguely, as though not seeing much connection. "B-b-but they said"--she cast her eyes down, embarrassed, and her voice sank even lower--"th-that he... a French-man's thing, you know...."
     "Yes, I know," I said, striving for patience.  "So far as I know, they're much like any other man's.  Englishmen and Scotsmen are quite similarly endowed."
     "Yes, but they, they... p-p-put it between a lady's l-l-legs!  I mean, right up inside her!"  This bit of stop-press news finally out, she took a deep breath, which seemed to steady her, for the violent crimson of her face receded slightly.  "An Englishman, or even a Scot... oh, I didn't mean it that way..."  Her hand flew to her mouth in embarrassment.  "But a decent an like your husband, surely he would n-never dream of forcing a wife to endure s-something like that!"
     I placed my hand on my slightly bloated stomach and regarded her thoughtfully.  I began to see why spirituality ranked so highly in Mary Hawkins's catalog of manly virtues.
     "Mary," I said, "I think we must have a small talk." (Dragonfly 254)

She has "the talk" with other young women throughout the Outlander series, and counsels and reassures Mary after an interrupted rape that she will not become pregnant, because he "didn't finish" (Dragonfly 360).

In Voyager, Jamie is a somewhat unlikely sex ed teacher.  Except that, if we consider the romance novel model, maybe it's not so unlikely that Geneva Dunsany's sexual instruction comes from the attractive near-stranger who also provides her sexual initiation (and, indeed, her sole sexual experience).  But his instruction begins immediately after he yields to her blackmail.  Now that he is a "co-conspirator," he gives her advice based on biology, of which she is clearly ignorant:

     “Arrange it, then,” he said, his stomach curdling. “Mind ye choose a safe day, though.”
     “A safe day?” She looked blank.
     “Sometime in the week after ye’ve finished your courses,” he said bluntly. “You’re less likely to get wi’ child then.”
      “Oh.” She blushed rosily at that, but looked at him with a new interest. (208)

There is no indication that this is information that Jamie has learned from Claire; however, because Jamie was a virgin when he and Claire were married, the encounter with Geneva necessarily recalls his own first time, with his own inexperience:

     “How much do you  …   I mean, have ye any idea how it’s done?”
     Her gaze was clear and guileless, though her cheeks flamed.
     “Well, like the horses, I suppose?” He nodded, but felt a pang, recalling his wedding night, when he too had expected it to be like horses.
     “Something like that,” he said, clearing his throat. “Slower, though.  More gentle,” he added, seeing her apprehensive look.  (212)

In Outlander, Claire's first experience as a sexual educator was, in fact, correcting Jamie's assumptions.

Jamie is sensitive to Geneva's desire to watch him undress and conflicting shyness; he addresses in a less direct way the physical change of erection.  He addresses with her whether the act will hurt, reassuring her that the experience will improve after the first time, and gives her the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity about his body (212).  He also imparts something of the sacred nature of sex, though the context is both forced (for him) and (once again) fornication.  First, in the context of a reprimand to Geneva, he indicates that there is honor in the sex act, for men and for women:

“I’ll serve ye properly,” he said, looking down at his working fingers, “for the sake of my own honor as a man, and yours as a woman...." (201)

Even as he acknowledges to himself that the loveless, all-consuming lust he feels in anticipation of a sexual encounter is not honorable:

But overall there was a terrible lust, a need that clawed at his vitals and made him ashamed of his own manhood, even as he acknowledged its power. (213)

Then, as he commences with Geneva, he instructs her in how she should feel about her own body, and how a man should treat her in bed:

“A man should pay tribute to your body,” he said softly, raising each nipple with small, circling touches. “For you are beautiful, and that is your right.” (214)

The emphasis is actually on her dignity.

When the act is complete, Jamie answers her confusion:

     “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t know it would hurt you too.”
     His eyes popped open in astonishment, and he raised himself on one elbow to find her looking at him like a startled fawn. Her face was pale, and she licked dry lips.
     “Hurt me?” he said, in blank astonishment. “It didna hurt me.”
     “But”— she frowned as her eyes traveled slowly down the length of his body—“ I thought it must. You made the most terrible face, as though it hurt awfully, and you  …   you groaned like a—”
     “Aye, well,” he interrupted hastily, before she could reveal any more unflattering observations of his behavior. “I didna mean  …   I mean  …   that’s just how men act, when they  …   do that,” he ended lamely. (216)

He tends to her, and even endures the indignity of her response to his ejaculation, another learning experience for her.

Jamie's final lesson to Geneva about sex is that it should not be confused with love, though there is something more akin to infatuation or puppy love than lust in Geneva's regard for Jamie, and certainly more akin to love than anything she was likely to experience in her arranged marriage.

     “No,” he said, but gently, shaking his head. “That’s the third rule. You may have no more than the one night. You may not call me by my first name. And you may not love me.”
     The gray eyes moistened a bit. “But if I can’t help it?”
     “It isna love you feel now.” He hoped he was right, for his sake as well as her own. “It’s only the feeling I’ve roused in your body. It’s strong, and it’s good, but it isna the same thing as love.”
     “What’s the difference?”
     He rubbed his hands hard over his face. She would be a philosopher, he thought wryly. He took a deep breath and blew it out before answering her.
     “Well, love’s for only one person. This, what you feel from me— ye can have that with any man, it’s not particular.” (217-218)

While he is trying to protect himself from the beginning, he is also trying to protect her.

Jamie's is necessarily a more comprehensive lesson than those usually given by Claire--even more so than her instruction of him, since she was not concerned with honor or dignity or emotion, simply with completing the act, and with pleasure.  Though I have argued that Geneva's tryst with Jamie parallels the expected plot of a romance novel, and though even these moments of instruction have correlations in the romance genre, the nature of the instruction, and in particular Jamie's honest and straightforward communication with Geneva and emphasis on her dignity, distinguish Gabaldon's imitation from the real romance novel genre, even making the romance novel seem a parody of this more serious representation of an inexperienced girl's willful manipulation of a man she desires into her bed for her edification.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

Voyager: The Scourging of Jamie

In Dragonfly in Amber there is a scene of extended biblical allusion that seems to add little to the novel, and almost functions as a parody of the biblical scene--when Jack Randall's brother gives his beloved, pregnant Mary to Jack as his wife.  In Voyager, a scene of Jamie being flogged, arms outstretched, similarly evokes a biblical scene--the scourging of Christ leading up to the Crucifixion:

The man’s muscles tightened in resistance to the pain. Again and again, until each separate muscle stood hard under the skin. His own muscles ached with tension, and he shifted inconspicuously from one leg to another, as the brutal tedium continued. Thin streams of red ran down the prisoner’s spine, blood mixed with water, staining the cloth of his breeches. (183)

And yet, it is difficult to say what this scene contributes to the novel.  The reader has seen Jamie flogged before with no references to Christ, but here, the mixture of blood and water echoes the Crucifixion very clearly.  Perhaps it taps into the idea that Voyager is a purgatorial novel.  But it never quite reaches that level of significance, since the point seems to be how Jamie has allowed himself to be flogged, not merely as sacrifice for Angus McKenzie, but to force Lord John to punish him, and so perhaps divert Grey's sexual attraction.  

If I were forced to find significance in this allusion, given that the emphasis is on Grey's response rather than Jamie's pain, I would have to conclude that Jamie has, in fact, sacrificed himself for? because of? John's sin.  John does feel "self-disgust," but mainly because his eyes are fixed to the "wrenching beauty" of the scene of agony--a narrative commentary from Grey's voice that evokes artistic representations of Christ's agony.

Regardless of possible symbolism, I am forced by Jamie's sacrifice and John's gaze to remember Jamie's last (debasing) homosexual encounter(s)--with a man (Jack Randall) who would have derived more punishment from seeing Jamie flogged than from the sexual act.  After the flogging, ordered by Grey, Jamie dreams of the aftermath of the flogging by Jack Randall that nearly killed him.  Having himself flogged in response to Grey's desires recalls Randall's sadism, linking the two homosexual characters through violence to Jamie's body--perhaps to distinguish John Grey's homosexual desire (what Grey calls love*) from Randall's sadism.  Or perhaps it suggests that there is an element of sadism in homosexual desire--contributing to my sense that Gabaldon's narratives never wholeheartedly embrace homosexuality--and perhaps also that there are elements of sadism and homoeroticism in Christian artwork, which has been argued before.

And also masochism . . . I am tempted to resist it as self-punishment, because Jamie does not seem guilty of a crime towards Grey or towards himself.  However, there is the hint of something--again, a Purgatorial resonance.  The punishment--represented as a removal, and almost a scourging of temptation--seems to have brought peace:

He felt relieved at once of many things. Of the weight of immediate responsibility, of the necessity for decision. Temptation was gone, along with the possibility of it. More important, the burden of anger had lifted; perhaps it was gone for good.  (189)

But what is the temptation?  To yield to loneliness and accept John's advances? Or to sell his body for continued warmth and nourishment--and freedom?   (There are two conflicting suggestions in this and other works--that Jamie is incapable of giving his body to John freely, and that he could offer John use of his body only as an absolute sacrifice.  But as a prisoner, perhaps the promise of companionship is enough?)  Or perhaps it's the more benign temptation to place himself in Lord John's company once again, and potentially leave himself open for further advances.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

*Lest my statement "what Grey calls love" be taken as more jaded than I intend it to be, let me say that I have no doubt that John does feel sexual attraction to Jamie.  He might feel the beginning of philia.  He certainly feels philia later--but perhaps not here, as his acquaintance with Jamie is at this point too brief, and exists in a context (of prisoner/imprisoned) that precludes romantic love (eros) or selfless love (agape).   A confusion of friendly and sexual feelings at this point marks John's same-sex attraction, marking it as a hybrid and even disordered as compared with the ideal of love in the novels, the love between Jamie and Claire, though it is worth noting that to John at least, his love for Hector (a play on the Illiad,  no doubt, in which Hector kills Achilles' lover--friend, fellow-soldier--Patroclus) is akin to Jamie's for Claire (see Voyager p. 172-173, 178).

Voyager: Men, Childbirth, and Helplessness

In the early chapters of Voyager, Jenny gives birth to her youngest son Ian, who becomes one of the central characters in Outlander series and the primary motivation behind the plot action in the latter 1/3 of the novel. Although he has had warning that there are British soldiers in the area, Jamie feels compelled to be nearby in the house while Jenny gives birth.  In the scene of Jamie's waiting, and his subsequent conversation with Jenny, several of the notable threads that run through the books come together.

The overarching theme is a further development of the position of men in relation to women's fertility--but not simply their fertility.  The word "fertility," in fact, sounds a bit like critical or clinical jargon as compared to the fully developed process--from copulation, to conception, to birth, to breastfeeding--that is the fruitful potential of woman.  The Outlander books develop this very well in some places--particularly with reference to Jenny and Claire, and Jamie's relationship with the women whom he loves.  Other times, women's fertility is treated in less of a rich, full manner--particularly with reference to the adult Brianna, or at other times when "women's issues" are invoked as such.

The difference depends to a large degree on perspective.  When Jamie's perspective on women and childbirth enters into the narrative, fertility is that large, encompassing, nurturing, desirable thing.  Jamie desires to be both lover and child (in a way that Frank achieves--well, almost), to protect woman and be protected by her, all the while aware of the danger and joy inherent in every sexual act and every procreative act. There are times when his fear does reduce female fertility to more of a medical concern, though this is under Claire's 20th century medical (contraceptive) influence.

What becomes apparent in this particular scene in Voyager is that Jamie, who is strong and fearless as a warrior, is helpless--reduced to a child himself--when confronted with childbirth.  Birth unmans men, who are nevertheless complicit in the creation of the child--except that Jamie is not complicit in the creation of this child.  This child is Ian's and Jenny's.  So as he waits, Jamie experiences fear and reverts somewhat to childhood, calling on his older brother who died when they were children:

Another scream came from upstairs, and a spasm of fear clenched his hands on the book. “Pray for us, Brother,” he whispered, and crossing himself, laid down the Bible and went out to the barn to help with the stock. (68)

Here, the ghost of Jamie's brother William is invoked as a saint--to pray for the living, as a friend or priest or whomever would pray--from a position that is closer to God.  However, since William died as a child--when Jamie was a still younger child--Jamie positions himself as a childlike younger brother once more when he asks his brother to pray for him and for Jenny.  This is the comfort he seeks in the face of childbirth--the comfort that a small child seeks from a beloved older brother: "he had always felt safe, with Willie standing behind him" (68).  It is always in moments of severe self-doubt when Jamie invokes his brother as a saint, as in Dragonfly in Amber.

When he goes to see Jenny with the newborn Ian, Jamie reveals some of that self-doubt:

     “She was with child,” he said softly at last, speaking to the reflection. “When she— when I lost her.” How else could he put it? There was no way to tell his sister, where Claire was— where he hoped she was. That he could not think of another woman, hoping that Claire still lived, even knowing her truly lost to him for good. 

     There was a long silence from the bed. Then Jenny said quietly, “Is that why ye came today?” He sighed and turned sideways toward her, leaning his head against the cool glass. His sister was lying back, her dark hair loose on the pillow, eyes gone soft as she looked at him. 

     “Aye, maybe,” he said. “I couldna help my wife; I suppose I thought I might help you. Not that I could,” he added, with some bitterness. “I am as useless to you as I was to her.” (74-75)

Warrior though he is, Jamie is reduced to a child by the awesome power and risk of childbirth.

It is interesting to me here that while women's "devouring sexuality" is often represented as a thing to be feared--or so argue generations of feminist critics who enjoy ferreting out such things--here, it is the bringing forth of life that is dangerous to men--primarily because of its danger to women.  Woman takes in the man in the sexual act; she contains him in the womb.  In Outlander, both the "taking in" and the "containing" are good.  It is in the bringing forth of childbirth that she endangers him--primarily by endangering herself.  Of course, this could be because--as the narrative repeats again and again--she already has possession of his soul.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Voyager: Jenny Reading Again - More Women's Literacy

In the early chapters of Voyager, in the aftermath of Culloden, when the people of Lallybroch are coping with hunger, grief, fear and oppression,  literacy takes on a more urgent kind of significance than the one it had for Jenny in Dragonfly in Amber.   In his hermit-like exile, Jamie depends on books, and Claire's medical training is not only book-based, but occasions her own use of books for coping.  Meanwhile, in her own, practical way, Jamie's sister Jenny also depends on books to cope with hardship--and not French novels and poetry this time (see here and here for Jenny reading in Dragonfly).

So it happens that, coming into the house with freshly killed rabbits, Jamie finds Jenny with a book that seems, to him, superfluous:

“Cut them into collops and break the bones for me, will ye, Jamie?” she said, frowning at Mrs. McClintock’s Receipts for Cookery and Pastry-Work, laid open on the table beside the pie pan.
     “Surely ye can make hare pie without looking in the wee book?” he said, obligingly taking the big bone-crushing wooden mallet from the top of the hutch where it was kept. He grimaced as he took it into his hand, feeling the weight of it. It was very like the one that had broken his right hand several years before, in an English prison, and he had a sudden vivid memory of the shattered bones in a hare pie, splintered and cracked, leaking salty blood and marrow-sweetness into the meat.
     “Aye, I can,” his sister answered abstractedly, thumbing through the pages. “It’s only that when ye havena got half the things ye need to make a dish, sometimes there’s something else you’ll come across in here, that ye can use instead.” (61-62)

This is an interesting moment, because it shows a book--a codex--that is not used for pleasure or propaganda.  Rather than providing spiritual nourishment (as Bibles are mentioned occasionally, though in Outlander mainly as an object signifying need for vengeance against Jack Randall), this book provides for physical nourishment.

This literacy moment is also interesting because it is another instance of gendered reading.  When Claire reads, it is without the same kind of gender marker as Jenny, simply because she is a different kind of woman than Jenny.  Claire, while marked by motherhood, can't really be called "domestic"--much to the chagrin of Frank.  Jenny's reading--in this and the other instance, in Dragonfly--is gendered, domestic reading.  By this I mean that in the narrative, it is specifically tied to her duties as the matriarch of the household, providing food and clothing and otherwise caring for her children and her men.  Beyond just the fact of being gendered and domestic, this women's reading is thrifty and useful.  She reads for reference, which is not common in the novels--even when Claire refers to reading medical texts, the emphasis is on the fact that she and her colleague are not reading professional materials.  She also reads as a matter of resourcefulness.  It is a hands-on, practical means of coping, showing that not all reading in the Outlander books is pie-in-the sky, escapist sort of stuff.  In fact, the uses of literacy are quite diverse (even if individual, intellectual uses of literacy are privileged).

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Reading The Awakening Wrong**

I've always hated Kate Chopin's The Awakening, ever since it was forced upon us in high school.  When, as a 19-year-old college senior, 8 months pregnant, I was designated in my Literary Criticism  class to read aloud the Marxist feminist essay on The Awakening that argued that motherhood rendered a woman's life meaningless, I was amused, but not more inclined to like the tale.  I have not quite decided to reread it, as I am still inclined to think that trotting out The Awakening as a long-lost, long-forgotten classic that was suppressed because of the patriarchal slant of the canon was bona fide First- or Second Wave feminist nonsense, but as I was turning it over in my mind today, I decided to jot down a few thoughts.

While it may seem like a drastic departure from the Outlander series, I'm not sure that it wasn't, in fact, Outlander that brought it to mind.  Or at least, it was Outlander with its discourses on gender, sexuality, and motherhood, combined with my own thoughts on those very same subjects--which happen, actually, to be some of my very favorite subjects, just not as they are usually treated by literary critics and gender theorists.  My own model of literary criticism would take as a starting point the reader's reactions and the connections that proceed from those reactions, rather than taking as a starting point some external point of reference, like Marx (for an easy example).  It is entirely possible that Marx might become relevant (though usually not here), and certainly external theorists, philosophers, and critics--many more (and many more classical and Enlightenment philosophers) than exist in the current canon in the humanities--should be available as a point of reference.  But in order for the writer to be truly invested in the analysis, in order to be writing something that is, for her, meaningful, and in order for the result to have originality and resonance, the initial spark should be at least somewhat personal.  This is why student papers on "Good and Evil in XY Literary Work" will always be doomed to failure (well, one reason)--lack of personal investment.  (The same can be said about hot topics in composition courses.  Because really?  They don't have much invested in a paper about lowering the drinking age, even if they think they do.)  It is the original combination of influences, experiences, and knowledge that shape an original critic.

So I found myself thinking about motherhood.  And thinking about my recent posts, here and here, about women in some stage of becoming mothers claiming the child as their own, I realized--this is a necessary step in becoming a mother.  It is, in some ways, a sign of the maturity and capacity to mother a child.  It is--at least in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager--an Awakening.  But it is clearly a step that is missing from Chopin's Awakening.

So I thought to myself, perhaps that's the point.  Perhaps the feminist icon Edna Pontellier was not a model of subversion and rebellion.  Certainly, she achieves self-negation rather than succumbing to the role of mother.  But is this the result of a deep character flaw, or a nobility of cause and purpose?  She is petulant.  She is childish.  She is weak.  She is hardly an admirable character.  And yet I remember having the distinct impression that her act of self-negation, because it was rebellion against the only possible role available to her as a woman, was a noble act.  Is it any wonder I regarded the work with disgust?  I do remember asking how her original audience received the story.  I'm not sure my teacher in high school new the answer--and when I was in college, my questions about reception were automatically dismissed as irrelevant.  I believe that Chopin was popular--it's one of the arguments for retaining her in the revised canon (If she was relevant in her own time, why have we dismissed her? Because she's a woman?  And yet, Tolkien is often considered unworthy of graduate study because he is popular, as when a course on his novels was proposed in my degree-granting department.)

Thinking further about Pontellier, though, I remember how she was set up against Adèle Ratignolle, the epitome of perfect, devoted motherhood.  While I find Edna repugnant, Adèle is not a suitable alternative, because to be held up to such a model of perfection could make any woman feel that self-annihilation is preferable to 1) that model of motherhood, or 2) trying to live up to that model while knowing the impossibility of achieving it.

I couldn't help visualizing this New Yorker cover, with its take on women and identity.

It seems that every model of womanhood in The Awakening is impossible, or imperfect, or undesirable, and perhaps that is more to the point than the claim that motherhood negates one's identity.  Edna Pontellier did not have an identity.  She looked for one in the women she knew, and she looked for one as a lover of the men she knew, and she was unable to find anything to fill her own void.  Rather, she becomes aware of herself as the Self that cannot be signified (a reference to Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy).  She cannot identify herself except with reference to others, and finds, finally, that her self does not exist, and yields to non-existence.  I find this slightly more interesting, but I still find Edna Pontellier to be a waste of a significant chunk of novella.

As it reflects on motherhood, though--it is her failure as a mother to claim her children that seems significant.  I have written papers (in grad school) about the need for the postfeminist woman to come to terms with fertility, and the choice to--or not to--mother.  But women constantly have choices put before them regarding their fertility, though they are not discussed as such. The "choice" that is commonly evoked with reference to women's fertility is, in fact, and act of violence that negates that fertility.  The choice that Edna never makes is the choice to claim her children as her own.  And it is only when she makes that choice that she can construct an identity that includes the act of mothering, even if her identity is not limited to Mother.

**I leave it open whether I am reading it wrong--intentionally against the grain--or whether I think that the feminist readings I was taught were wrong.  At the end of the day, I am not, in fact, committed to the text, though I am invested in the ideas of motherhood, choice (no, not that kind of choice!), and identity.

Time-Traveler as "Other"?

One of the interesting ideas that surfaces when Claire is back in the 20th C is the "difference" of the time traveler.  Before Dragonfly in Amber, the only other time traveler besides Claire is Geilie Duncan--late of 1968.  She and Claire recognize each other by means of their vaccination scars.  In Dragonfly, two others with time travel potential are added to the roster, notably Claire's daughter Brianna.

Brianna is striking, first and foremost, because of her physical appearance, which strongly favors her 18th Century father, Jamie.  When the narrative describes Brianna, most often through the consciousness of Roger Wakefield, her strangeness is emphasized--she is savage, and timeless, and Other.  The timeless quality is particularly interesting, since Brianna is a 20th Century/18th Century hybrid who carries forward a lineage that otherwise had died out in the 19th Century (Voyager ).

But Brianna is characterized by something a bit less visible--her immediacy:

She and her mother both gave that odd impression of having been outlined somehow, drawn with such vivid strokes that they stood out from their background as though they'd been engraved on it.  But Brianna had that brilliant coloring, and that air of absolute physical presence that made Bronzino's sitters seem to follow you with their eyes, to be about to speak from their frames. (Dragonfly 16)

Compared to Claire and Brianna, the 20th C is muted, somehow.  Here, Claire shares in the strangeness--either because she has experienced the 18th Century, which, as emphasized by the contrasts between 20th Century and 18th Century men in particular, is more vital, or because this immediacy is a characteristic of a time traveler.

When I read this, my initial reaction is to think--a man comparing a woman to a painting.  How cliché.  So cliché that it was an indictment of Gabriel Conroy's pretention and lack of imagination in "The Dead" by Joyce.  And it might be that this reflects badly on Roger's imagination.  But what about this particular 16th Century painter?  A quick Google search points to the likely image:  Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi.  She is Italian, not Scots, but here is as long and straight a nose as one could wish, red hair, brilliant coloring, and that sense that she will "follow you with [her] eyes, [and] be about to speak from [her] frame." From the metaphor, the reader is asked to take away a few crucial details:  that "they stood out from their background," and that Brianna has an air of "absolute physical presence" that is not characteristic of her 20th Century background.

In an ironic gesture, Roger realizes Brianna's Scots savagery as she defends Frank Randall as the father of her body as well as her heart:

The girl that stood on the hearthrug, hissing and spitting in defense of her paternity, flamed with the wild strength that had brought the Highland warriors down on their enemies like shrieking banshees.  Her long, straight nose lengthened sill further by the shadows, eyes slitted like a snarling cat's, she was the image of her father--and her father was patently not the dark, quiet scholar whose photo adorned the jacket of the book on the table. (Dragonfly 898)

Certainly Brianna's difference is related to her real parentage--an 18th Century Highland warrior rather than a 20th Century English scholar.  But these descriptions that single out Brianna for her difference also tap into the question of why some people are time travelers and some aren't.  In Voyager, Geilie posits an answer-- that time travelers have the ability to travel through time so that they can change things.  Her own insanity--which undermines her credibility--and Claire's experience suggest otherwise.

But descriptions of Brianna tap into what the essence of the difference is.  Heredity is a factor.  But time travelers are. . . well. . . timeless.  Like a painting, or an illuminated manuscript:

     Fiona laughed up at Brianna, who towered over the small Scottish girl by nearly a foot. Fiona was nineteen, prettily charming and slightly plump; next to her, Brianna looked like a medieval carving, strong-boned and severe. With her long, straight nose and the long hair glowing red-gold beneath the glass bowl of the ceiling fixture, she might have walked out of an illuminated manuscript, vivid enough to endure a thousand years unchanged. 

    Roger was suddenly conscious of Claire Randall, standing near his elbow. She was looking at her daughter, with an expression in which love, pride, and something else were mingled— memory, perhaps? He realized, with a slight shock, that Jamie Fraser too must have had not only the striking height and Viking red hair he had bequeathed to his daughter, but likely the same sheer physical presence. 

    It was quite remarkable, he thought. She didn’t do or say anything so out of the ordinary, and yet Brianna undeniably drew people. There was some attraction about her, almost magnetic, that drew everyone near into the glow of her orbit. (Voyager 43)

Brianna has Jamie's charisma, but more than that, she demonstrates that time travelers are different--timeless--and gives further evidence that something important--vital, "vivid"--is missing from the 20th Century that did (or does) exist in the 18th.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) (p. 43). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Voyager: To Suckle, and Return to the Womb (Updated)

Not every post will relate to the Purgatorial theme.  Because certainly not every moment in the book evokes anything like Purgatory--even when Claire's absence from Jamie deprives her of light, she must continue her life with Frank.  And as they are husband and wife, there will be husband-and-wife moments, albeit not many.

The one truly erotic moment between Claire and Frank post-Jaime is one that is intimately bound to Claire's fertility--her motherhood--and it is a scene to which the books have been building since Outlander.  It begins with what is a very normal situation for a breastfeeding mother--the baby wakes, nurses on only one side, and then falls into a deep sleep, leaving the mother feeling engorged and, well--lopsided.  Claire is prepared to pump to relieve pressure, but Frank has other ideas... er, impulses:

Instead of leaving or answering, he took the pump from my hand and laid it down on the table. As though it moved of its own will, without direction from him, his hand rose slowly through the warm, dark air of the nursery and cupped itself gently around the swollen curve of my breast. 

His head bowed and his lips fastened softly on my nipple. I groaned, feeling the half-painful prickle of the milk rushing through the tiny ducts. I put a hand behind his head, and pressed him slightly closer. 

“Harder,” I whispered. His mouth was soft, gentle in its pressure, nothing like the relentless grasp of a baby’s hard, toothless gums, that fasten on like grim death, demanding and draining, releasing the bounteous fountain at once in response to their greed. Frank knelt before me, his mouth a supplicant. Was this how God felt, I wondered, seeing the adorers before Him—was He, too, filled with tenderness and pity? The haze of fatigue made me feel as though everything happened in slow motion, as though we were under water. 

Frank’s hands moved slowly as sea fronds, swaying in the current, moving over my flesh with a touch as gentle as the brush of kelp leaves, lifting me with the strength of a wave, and laying me down on the shore of the nursery rug. I closed my eyes, and let the tide carry me away.  (42)

The moment troubles me not because of the nature of the eroticism--I've been on the internet long enough to know that though some men have adverse reactions to their wives breastfeeding, others find partaking of breasts full of milk to be a rare treat.  It does get more bizarre when it becomes a regular husband-wife thing, but I'm not willing to address either extreme in any kind of nonfictional way.  I will say that adult male breastfeeding is not without literary or historical/legendary precedent, though in the case of The Grapes of Wrath and the story of Pero and Cimon, the act is about charity and starvation rather than motherhood and sexuality.

Frank's suckling bothers me for none of these reasons.  Rather, it registers as fetishism and objectification because his desire for Claire--and worship at her breast when the narrative picks up the thread of Adoration for one single, misplaced moment--seems indistinguishable from his desire for other women.  His desire perhaps derives from her mothering of Brianna, whom he has claimed as his own, but certainly taps into the primal instinct that men have (the novels argue) to turn to their wives as a way of returning to the womb.

In Outlander, Jamie's sister Jenny posits that men seek to return to the womb, a theory that Jamie and Claire discuss shortly afterward:

     "Do you think Jenny's right?" I asked later.  "Do men really want to come back inside? Is that why you make love to us?" A breath of laughter stirred the hair by my ear.

     "Well, it's no usually the first thing in my mind when I take ye to bed, Sassenach.  Far from it. But then..." [...] "I'd no say she was completely wrong either.  Sometimes... aye, sometimes it would be good, to be inside again, safe and... one.  Knowing we cannot, I suppose, is what makes us want to beget.  If we cannot go back ourselves, the best we can do is to give that precious gift to our sons, at least for a little while..." (Outlander 633)

Desire for the womb becomes a theme that surfaces in Dragonfly and broadens into a nurturing aspect of sexuality that manifests itself again in Dragonfly:

     "Will ye let me do this later?" he murmured, with a soft bite. "When the child's come, and your breasts fill wi' milk?  Will ye feed me, too, next to your heart?" 

     I clasped his head and cradled it, fingers deep in the baby-soft hair that grew thick at the base of his skull. 

     "Always," I whispered. (Dragonfly 249-50)

In fact, though I seem to have lost the scene--or haven't stumbled upon it again--it seems that Jamie dreamed of suckling at Claire's breast just as Frank did...  And this is strange because there is a dual link  (a somewhat disturbing one) between Frank and  Jamie--Claire, and also Jack Randall.  So when Jamie vicariously experiences Frank's erotic encounter with Claire, well... it is an odd moment, to say the least.

And again, the connection between the powerful emotional and physical bonding of sex, and the physical intimacy of mother and unborn child become conflated:

And when I had at length taken my last revenge of him, I did cradle him, stroking back the roughened, half-dry locks. 

"And sometimes," I whispered to him, "I wish it could be you inside me. That I could take you into me and keep you safe always." 

His hand, large and warm, lifted slowly from the bed and cupped the small round swell of my belly, sheltering and caressing. 

"You do, my own," he said. "You do," (Dragonfly 312)

With Jamie, each of these moments carries a tenderness--a quality of bonding, in which Claire's nurturing is appreciated, and Jamie's innocence, or the tragic impossibility of his innocence, becomes manifest.  The actual scene of suckling--with Frank--while it carries a tenderness of sorts, does seem to carry more eroticism and less emotion because of the missing bond.  What should exist between Claire and Frank is defective, and the act, if not precisely perverse, seems a violation of sorts, even if consensual.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) (p. 42). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Addendum:

It is when Jamie is in Ardsmuir Prison that he dreams of suckling from Claire's breast, as Frank has done:

Then her breast pressed against his mouth, and he took it eagerly, drawing her body tight against him as he suckled her. Her milk was hot and sweet, with a faint taste of silver, like a deer’s blood. 

     “Harder,” she whispered to him, and put her hand behind his head, gripping the back of his neck, pressing him to her. “Harder.” 

     She lay at her length upon him, his hands holding for dear life to the sweet flesh of her buttocks, feeling the small solid weight of the child upon his own belly, as though they shared it now, protecting the small round thing between their bodies. (175-176)

The repetition of what Claire did, in fact, say to Frank, suggests that he is participating in some sense in the act.  It is a strange moment because Jamie lingers as a ghost of sorts over Claire's marriage to Frank, and her abandonment in the act rather suggests that Frank's presence--and identity--is somewhat unnecessary, since her real connection is to Jamie.

Another interesting point is that in his dream, Jamie shares in Claire's pregnancy here in a way that he could not in reality.  From the desire to return to the womb, we now have almost a "male womb"--he is able to protect Brianna as if she were in a womb, even though for suckling to occur, Brianna would have been born already.

Notable, too, is the way in which bodily fluids--blood and milk--become conflated.  Claire nourishes Jamie--in spirit--with her body and her (metaphorical) blood.  The reference to Adoration in the scene with Frank suggests a spiritual Communion between Jamie and Claire, though it somehow occurs through the body of Frank, which remains disturbing.  I confess to having a significant dislike for Frank.

Reading Voyager: An Analysis of Technology-mediated Reading

I'm gearing up to start posting on the third book in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, Voyager.  Note that I'm not gearing up to read the book--I've been working on it for about a week now, and I'm close to halfway finished (even with a busy week)!  But either because of how I'm reading it, or the book itself, or other writing I'm doing, I'm not stopping as often to post my analyses.

I love Outlander.  And I like Dragonfly in Amber.  Right now I'm trying to decide if I like Voyager more than the other two.  Probably not more than Outlander, because, well--Outlander starts the ball rolling.  There are mysteries and people to discover, places to see--and see again--a lot of sex and a lot of adrenaline.  And in fact, it is maybe the adrenaline that makes me feel like Outlander is not as easy to revisit.  But Voyager has the pace--it clips along very nicely, thank you!  Dragonfly in Amber does not have the same fast pace--which is just as well, because when I first read Outlander, I could not have handled another book of the same intensity so soon after.  My heart would have lept out of my chest!  But if it somewhat slower--if some parts even drag a bit for me--there is a lot in Dragonfly that can be considered, and analyzed.  Voyager is nice to just read.  There is not as much as in Outlander that's unfamiliar or disturbing.  Many of the essential comparisons between the 20th and the 18th Centuries have already been made by the third book.  It is a book with action, but not tense action--at least, not yet.  There is tension, but it comes later.  So it is a book that says to me, "Read me!  You know you want to.  Things are happening.  Come and see how they unfold!"  And it begs me to save the analysis for later.

On the other hand, I have many things that I plan to analyze.  I have them marked.  And the marking is a difference in my method.

For the first time, I am reading one of the Outlander books on my new Kindle.  For my birthday last month, I got a Kindle Paperwhite.  I had no idea that it would change my reading, though--literacy theory scholar that I am--I should probably have anticipated it.  Marshall McLuhan could have warned me, I'm sure.

Voyager is not the first book I have read on the Kindle--I read Lady of Devices: A Steampunk Novel by Shelly Adina (it's free for Kindle), which was not a terribly challenging read--in a couple of days.  I also read A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows: An Outlander Novella--in a relatively short time.  Both short; both books that were more straightforward, with less to analyze (not that I won't come back to A Leaf at some point, mind you...).  Not so, Voyager.  But the way of reading persists.

When I was rereading Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber in the small, trade paperback editions with the solid-covers of blue and orange (respectively), adorned with appropriate symbolic object, I was not making notes in the books.  I have no problem making notes in the books--except that I'm picky about what kind of pen/pencil I use, and I sometimes want to reread a book from scratch without my previous marks influencing my reading, and that the paper on which these books are printed are a little too coarse and porous to lend themselves to notes.  Okay, I have several problems with making notes in books--particularly since the advent of eReading technology.  And also, since rediscovering reading like a reader instead of reading like a critic, I have actually stopped reading with my pen. It's sort of liberating.   However, it wasn't a conscious decision not to mark the books.  It just happened that way.

So while reading Outlander and Dragonfly, I would read the book.  When I came to a scene that I wanted to blog, I would either type the passage as a draft post right then and there, or I would remember it for later, or I would stop reading until I felt like coming back to blog about it, or I would use the Blogger app on my iPod to enter some basic info--page numbers and a title at the least, but sometimes I also included a note or two of what I wanted to say about the passage in question.  I frequently had several minimal draft posts on the go at the same time, and I would come back to them at leisure.  But what happened was that the knowledge that I had 4 or so draft posts to work on would halt my reading.  I couldn't go on until I cleared the cache, so to speak.  It was an interesting phenomenon.

So what is different with Voyager?  One of the greatest features of the Kindle (and assorted eReaders) is the ability to highlight and make notes.  I personally wish that it would allow me to export my notes more easily.  I can post them to Facebook, but that's not what I want to do.  I would love for it to export to Blogger, or to send it to my email.  So what I've been doing is, instead of posting to Blogger--actually typing in the text as I come to it--I've been highlighting my Kindle version.  This saves the text for later, but without the same pressure of the draft posts.  It works out very nicely, because I can then use my Mac version of the Kindle Reader to review my highlights and copy the text from the eBook into Blogger.  The Kindle Cloud Reader for Chrome doesn't have this capability, but the one for Mac OS does.  Go figure.  (See Kindle Reading Apps here.  No, Amazon isn't paying me anything.)

The highlighting feature also allows me to make notes and highlight text indiscriminately.  The thought process that went into choosing what would make a good analysis is not quite present--the selection process is reserved for when I start writing, instead of taking place as I decide whether analysis of this or that particular passage is worth the effort of typing it into the computer or--horrors!--the iPod.  (Not iPAD--iPOD!  Translation: very tiny touchscreen.)  So I have a number of collected ideas, notes, and highlights.  I just haven't gotten around to applying the filter and deciding which notes are post-worthy. But I'm getting there!

So between the novel itself and the Kindle interface, I'm just sailing along.  But I've got a lot in the pipeline that I'll be rolling out soon!

Dragonfly: Mother and Child

As I wrap up Dragonfly in Amber and move on to Voyager, I know that I will be looking back on Dragonfly from time to time.  There are things that are set up in Dragonfly that are not quite ripe for discussion--like how the narrative and the other characters view the time traveling women as "Others."  That's a sneak preview!

The last moment I want to discuss in Dragonfly without waiting for the theme to pop up in another book is the moment after Claire finishes her narrative--replete with details that a child would probably not want to hear from her mother (*ahem* "thighs...slick and wet with Jamie's seed" (894) *ahem*), but which, presumably, the reader needs.  As a follow-up to the narrative, Claire mentions her dangerous pregnancy, and her ambivalent feelings toward her daughter, and Brianna pursues the issue:

Brianna didn't move; didn't take her eyes from her mother's face. Only her lips moved, stiffly, as if unaccustomed to talking.
"How long... did you hate me?"
Gold eyes met blue ones, innocent and ruthless as the eyes of a falcon.
"Until you were born. When I held you and nursed you and saw you look up at me with your father's eyes."
Brianna made a faint, strangled sound, but her mother went on, voice softening a little as she looked at the girl at her feet.
"And then I began to know you, something separate from myself or from Jamie. And I loved you for yourself, and not only for the man who fathered you." (897)

The "hatred" might seem cold to some, but might also register as quite normal and natural given the trauma of the birth, the circumstances--and the postpartum state.  Motherly feelings do not always spring to life with the birth of the baby, as anyone who has experienced it can testify.

The moment is interesting from narrative and thematic perspectives as well, and connects rather nicely with a previous post of mine on the topic of "women's issues."  The post examines the moment at which a woman "claims" a pregnancy, and moves from trying to escape it to trying to protect it.  Specifically, in answering Claire's question of whether she wants to keep her baby, Louise de La Tour, married mistress of Charles Stuart, moves from attributing her reason for wanting the baby to her feelings for the father to identifying the baby as her own:

     She lifted her head and stared at me in astonishment.
     "But of course I want it!" She exclaimed. "It's his--it's Charles's! It's..." Her face crumpled, and she bowed her head once more over her hands, clasped so tightly over her belly.  "It's mine," she whispered. (243)

Though it comes at the conclusion of a pregnancy rather than at the beginning, Claire's description of her feelings for Brianna models the process by which a mother accepts the child that she must protect--this time, with an affirmation of the separate selfhood of the child.  She moves from resentment based on her own personal circumstances--the distance she has had to place between herself and Jamie because of the baby, to love based on love for the father, and finally, to love for Brianna as a separate person.  This is a step that the reader does not see with reference to Louise, but which defines the relationship between Claire and her daughter throughout the novels--even when Claire is mooning over the resemblances between Jamie and Bree.

Dragonfly: Not-so-saintly Ghosts

Towards the end of Dragonfly in Amber, we learn a thing or two about ghosts.  As she marvels over Alex Randall's ability to cling to life, Claire-as-narrator (because I think her voice shifts throughout the novels) ruminates on what ghosts are, no longer doubting their reality:

I thought that was perhaps how some ghosts were made; where a will and a purpose had survived, heedless of the frail flesh that fell by the wayside, unable to sustain life long enough.  I didn't much want to be haunted by Alex Randall; that, among other reasons, was why I had made Jamie come with me today. (858)

Although it is peopled with more or less saintly ghosts from beginning to end, the one ghost that haunts the whole Outlander series for me is the ghost--presumably Jamie, though we don't know him at that point in the narrative--whom Frank Randall sees gazing with consternation at Claire's 20th Century window at the beginning of Outlander.

About 30 pages later, the novel evokes the bond between Jamie and Claire--a timeless bond (appropriately enough)--in Jamie's declaration that (once again evoking The Princess Bride), "death cannot stop true love--it can only delay it a little":

"I will find you," he whispered in my ear.  "I promise.  If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you--then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes.  For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust.  But there is one thing that shall lie in the balance.  When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."
     His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
     "Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well." (889)

Though final judgment before God is evoked, there is something a little unholy, both in the will of Alex Randall and that of Jamie--unholy, but also admirable from a very worldly, human perspective, since it is human love that leads the soul to resist eternal rest, and human love itself is presumed to have some redeeming power.  (The idea of the redemptive power of human love could lead me on a whole different tangent, about Plato's Symposium and the "ladder of love"...)

A few pages later, as Claire and Jamie consummate their leave-taking:

Neither of us could finish the vow, "so long as we both shall live," but the unspoken words hung aching between us.  Finally he smiled crookedly.
    "Longer than that," he said firmly, and pulled me to him once more. (892)

Between the two passages, the reader can begin to piece together the mystery of Jamie's ghost:  his will and his purpose are bound to Claire, and she no longer exists in his time.  Jamie cannot time travel in body--only as a ghost.

Here I am reminded of another ghost story--The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which is both a 1947 classic film with Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney, and a 1945 novel by R. A. Dick.  The protagonist does not fall in love with the ghost until he is a ghost, and the film and novel versions of Mrs. Muir present very different versions of the afterlife, with the novel permitting a movement of ghosts back-and-forth between a heaven-like place and the material, human world, and the film omitting the vision of heaven.  However, the connection of soul to earth because of the will and unfinished purpose is a commonality with Outlander, and the idea of eternal (human) love that transcends the flesh is another.  In the film, the eternal nature of love is particularly poignant and attractive, and though the differences are too many to number, the vision of Jamie as a ghost with unfulfilled purpose, refusing eternal rest and gazing on the woman whom he loves and with whom he cannot be joined, evokes the ghostly Captain Gregg for me.