A Bit of a Departure: Triton's Sacrifice in The Little Mermaid

It's not--strictly speaking--a book.  In fact, I don't want to tie it to the Hans Christian Anderson story--which I love--at all, but neither am I here to talk about the shortcomings of the Disney version as compared to the original fairy tale.  My daughters just happened to be watching The Little Mermaid tonight, and I was thinking about all of the ridiculous feminist critiques that my students drummed up for their Introduction to Literature papers when I was teaching with a Re-Visions theme, and how, when asked whether these damning interpretations would have any influence on whether or not they would let their sisters, nieces, or daughters watch the film, they said no, literary criticism would have no bearing on their actions.  And yet, they parroted it.  *sigh*  That class had no idea what I wanted, only a vague idea of what English teachers want.

I watched Ursula in particular.  She's a good villian, and besides the dribble about the reestablishment of the patriarchy when it is Triton's powers that give Ariel her wish instead of having her act on her own accord, I actually agree with much of what the critics say.  Yes. Ursula is absolutely the transgressive embodiment of voluptuous female sexuality.  She is vast and sensual, and greedy and gluttinous.  She is definitely impaled by Eric, and sure--let's call it a symbolic rape.  I'm okay with that.  Eric conquors her sexuality--and she self-destructs.  We have evil sexualized females operating outside of the social order all throughout traditional fairy tales--and yes, Gilbert and Gubar have attacked all of that as well.  But once we establish that, what do we do with it?  If what you do is celebrate all manifestations of assertive female sexuality, then this will resonate as very bad.  The "witch"--who represents what female sexuality is without so-called patriarchal control (which is to say, the woman who operates outside of what is acceptable to the social order)--is revealed as hyper-sexualized and grotesque, and is defeated by the prince.  The reestablishment of the social order by marriage is celebrated, much as it is in Shakespeare's comedies.  If you believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with the social order, then you will necessarily want to criticize this ending.  However, traditional fairy tales do function to reinforce rather than to subvert the social order, and to criticize Disney for doing that is to misunderstand the function, and also to try to recreate Disney in the critic's own image.  I have no problem, then, with Ursula's embodiment of unrestrained sexuality, or with her subsequent defeat.

However, to say that the patriarchy is all that it's cracked up to be in Disney's The Little Mermaid is not to pay attention.  So let's take a look at Triton.  He is not a strong king.  He is not a strong father.  His daughter defies him, gets out from under his thumb, and is rewarded rather than punished for her transgressions.  But that's not where I want to go, either.  Let's look at his self-giving sacrifice for a moment.

When Ursula is about to foreclose on Ariel, transforming her into a little worm-like creature that no doubt has some kind of sexual significance for the feminist critics (I don't get to lay into them too often, and I've got years of grad school to make up for), Triton appears to prevent Ursula's wicked scheme from coming to fruition.  His first act is very manly--he simply blasts the glowing magical contract.  Way to go, masculinity.  Score one for the patriarchy.  Ursula, however, is wise to the ways of the patriarchy.  She knows that brute force is no match for legalisms.  So as it turns out, the contract is legal.  And though she will try to sabotage a contract--which is the only way Ariel did not "win" their bargain, incidentally--she agrees to be bound by them when the decks are stacked in her favor.  So she offers the all-powerful sea king a deal.  His own freedom in exchage for Ariel.

On the surface, Triton's sacrifice is noble.  In fact, if you're not still in 16-year-old girl-power mode, you might notice that he loves his daughter more than his daughter loves him--rather like Cordelia and Lear (another ineffective monarch undone by his daughters/offspring).  But what is he really sacrificing?

Triton is not simply a father.  He is a king.  So by sacrificing himself for Ariel, he is placing her above all of her sisters, his kingdom--oh, and by the way, all of the oceans, and humanity's travel, trade, shipping, couastline cilvilization--and placing them all into the hands of pure, voluptuous evil.  Score another one for the patriarchy.  But he loves his daughter, so it's okay.  I'm not sure I can get behind that.  Particularly when--is it really his daughter he is thinking of, or only parental insecurity?  Is he making it up to Ariel for being a bad father by wrecking the whole world's oceans?  Way to show you care, Dad.

When you add it all up, Ariel's freedom is not worth the sacrifice that he makes.  After all, he is not godlike.  He can't keep up with his own daughter, so we know that he is not concerned with every sparrow.  But what should Triton have done?  The contract was legal, right?

Maybe he knew that Eric would come along--but we've already established that he's not omniscient, so no.  But it is worth noting that Eric kills Ursula--it was always his intent to do so (score one for the land-based patriarchy!)  Why does Ursula deserve to die?  (I mean, besides representing dark female sexuality.)  She has drawn up two contracts, and rightfully secured possession of the ocean, which she will now proceed to destroy.  So misuse of power.  Standard Macchiavelli.  She does rather expect Eric and Ariel to fall in line or be destroyed.  But there was also the small matter of the original contract, which she sabotaged.  And if Eric had the right to destroy her, couldn't Triton have indicted her on that account rather than trying to blast the paper?  Why, yes.  And he had evidence from Sebastian to condemn her for breach of contract. Heh.  Score one for the incompetant patriarch who had to wait for the land mammal to come along and save the day.

Fiery Cross: Dignity in Suffering

Sometimes, when focusing on just one aspect of a work, we get bogged down.  I am interested in the treatment of reproductive issues in the Outlander books, but I am completely bogged down by them, because there's so much there, and because I've written about it at such length already.  So... as I continue to read (and I admit to being bogged down a little bit in the series; at this point, I'm sort of just waiting for the next book, and for Rick Riordan's The House of Hades in paperback or some other discounted format...), I am putting things off for later.  I did this with Voyager, and never came back, but sometimes that's what has to be done.  And putting it off for later analysis is definitely easier with the Kindle format.  When I am reading a paper copy, I don't want to flip too many pages past the passage that I want to analyze because I'm not marking the copy.

As I was reading during my lunch hour today, I came across a scene that struck me as being true--and that I believe speaks to the reader in a particular way.  At the Gathering of the Clans that begins in Drums in Autumn (a poor title, really) and continues into The Fiery Cross (which arguably contains the content that the title of Drums was referring to), Roger MacKenzie, whom I see as participating in the weakened masculinity of the 20th Century as much as Frank in the earlier books, makes the rounds of certain families to enlist their help in an attempt by the governor to prevent revolt.  While making the rounds, he encounters a strong woman, "Auld Joan," who has become the head of her family because of the inability of her brother to assume the role:

     “A bhràthair, here’s Captain MacKenzie,” she said, reaching out a hand to the man that lay on a pallet of dry grass under the blanket’s shelter. Roger felt a sudden shock at the man’s appearance, but suppressed it.

     A spastic, they would have called him in the Scotland of Roger’s own time; what did they call such a condition now? Perhaps nothing in particular; Fraser had said only, He has nay speech.

     No, nor proper movement , either. His limbs were bony and wasted, his body twisted into impossible angles. A tattered quilt had been laid over him, but his jerking movements had pulled it awry, so that the cloth was bunched, wrenched hard between his legs, and his upper body was left exposed, the worn shirt also rumpled and pulled half off by his struggles. The pale skin over shoulder and ribs gleamed cold and blue-toned in the shadows.

 Nevertheless, his sister involves him in the decision to send men of the family to this skirmish or to withold them, and the revelation to Roger, and to the reader, that follows is quite profound, and sheds light on previous events in the series involving life, death, and dignity:

     Joan Findlay cupped a hand about the man’s cheek and turned his head so that he could look at Roger. “This will be my brother Iain, Mr. MacKenzie,” she said, her voice firm, daring him to react. 

     The face too was distorted, the mouth pulled askew and drooling, but a pair of beautiful—and intelligent —hazel eyes looked back at Roger from the ruin. He took firm grip of his feelings and his own features, and reached out, taking the man’s clawed hand in his own. It felt terrible, the bones sharp and fragile under skin so cold it might have been a corpse’s.

     “Iain Mhor,” he said softly . “I have heard your name. Jamie Fraser sends ye his regards.”

     The eyelids lowered in a graceful sweep of acknowledgment, and came up again, regarding Roger with calm brightness.

The expressiveness of the eyes immediately puts to rest any thought that this man is not a participant in the life of his family--and that fact exists quite apart from the care with which his sister has kept him alive and preserved his dignity and his place in the family.

In our own time, we have debates about the quality of life of severely disabled individuals.  On the one hand is the abstract notion of "quality of life," and the assumption that if one's life does not meet certain criteria, the misery of that knowledge or that state of being, or its limitations, make death preferable.  On the other hand is the--perhaps equally abstract notion of "dignity of life," a notion which seems to be contradicted by the undignified position of the severely disabled.  This scene cuts through all of the abstraction, however, and shows the reader what is at stake--and what is at stake is the soul, which is very much alive.

I have not mentioned them before now, but I have maked "for future discussion," if you will, scenes in which a main character--Claire most often, or in one case, Dougal MacKenzie--was the agent of death for someone who was suffering.  In three cases, it was not so-called "passive" euthenasia, though once Claire did simply withold treatment from a man who was bleeding to death with the knowledge that he would die a horrible death from infection if he survived the boar attack.  In two cases, Claire administered drugs--in a 20th Century hospital, and in the event of a near-lynching.  Dougal acted more in a more direct manner, speeding the death of a kinsman with his sword--unlike the medically assisted examples, it is not an "easy" death.  But each case was cast as a mercy killing, and each does, indeed, put an end to earthly suffering.  At no time during these scenes does the narrative evoke dignity in suffering.

Here, however, there is suffering, and there is also dignity.  The suffering is not man-made suffering resulting from violence.  Nor is it represented as a terminal illness--though it is likely degenerative.  It is a narrative moment when the author's Catholic background shines through, and it is one to notice, and perhaps to ponder against the examples of mercy killings in the other books of the series.

Gabaldon, Diana (2002-10-01). The Fiery Cross (Outlander) (Kindle Locations 2645-2646). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

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. 

Rapunzel. . . Redeemed?: Final Thoughts

I realize, finally, having looked over my previous posts, that I did not ever actually review the book.  More importantly, I think I glossed over or misrepresented some points that are fairly important, and lest I seem to have missed it, I do want to give a few last words.

First, the matter of Hermes's homosexual temptation.  I mentioned that it seemed a lightening of the evil of homosexuality since the novel acknowledge implicitly that the temptation to that kind of sin could happen.  Well, in fact, this is most likely an unintended implication, as Hermes is in prison, alone, and very much fallen--in a sinful state that has removed him from God.  He is, like other characters in the novel say, "a slave to his body."  Unable to satisfy his lust with Raphaela, or with another girl (and he does think about the innocent Melissa), he considers yielding to Pinkie.  What I find curious is that he considers a homosexual act--and using another for his lustful purposes--before he considers himself...

The idea that sex in general (perhaps), but premarital sex in particular makes one a slave to one's body is not simply a theme in the novel--the plot, and the experiences of Raphaela, Hermes, and--Dr. Zilberger, in fact--confirm this very Paulian truth.  If I see it as a weakness in the novel and rather unlikely that Dr. Zilberger, educated woman and feminist that she is, has allowed herself to be toyed with by a professor to the point that she had four abortions, neverteless the novel uses her backhistory as an example beyond that of Hermes and Raphaela that sex--the wrong kind of sex, sex without God--is addictive.  (I am not questioning the distinction that sex without God is the wrong kind of sex--that's basic Catholic stuff.)  So what seems to be a flaw is, in fact, the plot and characterization acting in the service of the moral, and while I don't believe that that conflict should exist, I can recognize it as the author's artistic choice to put the moral before the tale.

I decided to write this post after a weekend of moving because I was thinking about a turn in the responses to rape education. The most recent feminist argument is that rape prevention education should be targeted to young men rather than young women, because young women should not have to protect themselves by limiting their own activities.  Rather, young men should be educated to be sure that they are not rapists.  The message is one that Dr. Zilberger and her compadres would approve: that all young men are potential rapists.  This is played out in their villification of Hermes in the novel, but in fact, the plot supports this idea:  in fact, Hermes is a rapist.  He sees himself as a rapist from his first sexual encounter with Raphaela, when he recongizes the power differential and knows that he should not proceed.  He is a slave to sex, and sexual desire makes him a rapist.  While it is not violent rape, the message is clear:  that decent young men can become rapists, and relatively easily.  And I wonder, is this message a necessary one?  Do we want young men or young women thinking that they are constantly in danger from their sexual impulses, either to become slaves, ever seeking sexual gratification, or to become rapists and take what they want?  For me, the novel takes teen sexuality beyond sin and temptation, into sordid crime.  I never recover from Raphaela's age, for one thing.  Making it dark is absolutely intentional, and that's fine--for a particular reader.  But that reader is not me.

Therein lies my problem with Regina Doman.  I am not her reader.  But I want to be.  I am Catholic.  I like a good story.  I like fairy tales.  I like re-visions of fairy tales.  And I get all of her literary allusions.  But there are things that I simply can't accept--and in this case, it's the dark vision of sex.  Perhaps I just don't want a cautionary tale, but I think I could accept a cautionary tale, if it did not rely on types and extremes--but types and extremes are what the fairy tale is all about.  They are not, however, what novels are about, and the novel genre--especially the realistic novel, which this is--carries its own expectations, including more complexity.  At times, Doman achieves that complexity--when she allows her characters to be real, and to deal with more or less realistic difficulties.

There are moments of real beauty in the way people and plot twists come together--as when Raphaela finds her family.  The affirmation of family is also very nicely done, as is Raphaela's gradual spiritual awakening.  Those are the positives.  But I'm not sure the positives outweigh the negatives in my final estimation, and that's because the novel is bifurcated into the fairy tale and the messy reality, and the two halves never mesh.  It is also because the audience that Doman is writing to is the one she does not need to convert--because their ideas already mesh with her own, and all they want is a dramatization of those ideas.  Real dialogue is not possible, because the novel does not allow doubt or dissent a way in--clearly, because I represent a dissenting voice.  (I do not represent a dissenting Catholic, but I am a voice of dissent within the community of Doman's readers.)   Those who are not already convinced that Catholic views of sex are correct, or even who do not fully understand and accept, and instead wrestle with some aspects of Church teaching, will not find themselves welcome in the construct of the novel, because there is no working through of doubt, there is only what is right, and going against what is right.  There's ignorance, but that hardly counts.

As a contrast, I might pose that even unredeemed sexuality has something of the beauty of marital sexuality, and that that, in itself, makes it tempting.  But the reader never sees that.  However, I think it is much more poignant to consider how something that seems good can be an evil, rather than making the sin seem sordid from the start.  But I enter the conversation acknowledging the possibility of doubt and confusion.  Hermes is well-catechized, and even though he doesn't really know what the reality of the temptation will be for him, he has all the answers memorized and feels guilt at all the right moments.  He just keeps going.  Where is the questioning reader supposed to find a place?  Not with the ignorant Raphaela, and not with the well-catechized believer-gone-wrong Hermes.

Every time I read Regina Doman's novels, I want to see her reach for a wider audience--to evangelize, not simply to reassure.  And it is because of her characerization, her storytelling, and her gripping action sequences, and also for her desire to show what faith looks like that I want this for her novels.  But to gain a larger audience would mean to shuck some of the baggage of being right--and that means acknowledging that evil isn't always easy to see, or to label, and that political and social identities don't always signify a villian, or an evil person.  Perhaps I would like to see a truly adult novel that did not rely on a fairy tale trope or motif.  Perhaps then the struggle would satisfy?  I'm not sure.  But I will likely read the next one of her novels that I see reviewed, in the hope of seeing the author's work mature and expand, to reach beyond the type and stereotype to find good and evil in unexpected--and yet realistic--places.

Sex and the Catholic Fairy Tale: Rapunzel Let Down, Take 3

Although my reading of Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman has slowed to about one chapter every couple of nights, as I pack to move, enjoy a couple of unusual visit with friends who have pools, and--oh yeah, reread Harry Potter (I'm on Goblet of Fire--just because), I have worked my way through eleven chapters.  The chapters are short, and there are many of them, but this means that I have gotten through the (first?) sex scene.  And I'm sorry to say, but I think it's a bit of a mess.  It is fairly subtle, yes.  There's enough to work with that it might give some reader lustful feelings--particularly if that reader has not encountered intimacy of this sort in literature before.  There are no real descriptions, but there is enough tension and mention of skin and nudity to get the reader's imagination going, in spite of the necessary guilt.  It is in my nature to be both tongue-in-cheek and skeptical, and that's about all of the disclaimer I'm going to provide right now--but I will say that if this--and I mean strictly the mechanical aspects--were a sex scene that was situated in a novel that was saying something positive about sex, it would be subtle, and would pass as not too offensive, immoral, or whatever.  But it's not.  And the context is what bothers me.

I have problems with the way it is represented and executed--as if premarital sex could not be consensual; as if premarital sex cannot be enjoyable or intimate in the non-sexual meaning of intimacy; as if premarital sex is necessarily something seedy that borders on rape.

I have larger problems, however, with what the male protagonist (and the scene is written from his perspective) believes about sex.

Let me start with the first problem.  It lies with the author's essential motivation, and so is not something I can legitimately complain about without simply wishing for a different book.  This book does not set out to say something positive about sex.  It sets out to make a very negative point about the dangers of premarital sex.  And it does so by stacking the decks a bit.  He is 17, she is 15--so there's a difference in age and knowledge.  She is mature, but very sheltered.   No sexual interaction between the two can possibly be equal.  Frankly, this sort of creeps me out.  BUT--in fact, this makes a very excellent point.  There is often a differential of knowledge and experience in extramarital sex, especially for a virgin.  So--yes.  This is a very good point.

The problem lies in the fact that the sex was premeditated on his part--if only by a little bit--without knowledge on her part.  This might be realistic, but doesn't register as true, given that they are supposed to be friends.  There is a tenderness.  And he violates it completely.  Yes, he is selfish.  But I have a difficult time empathizing with his guilt, and this is the start of it.  And yet, the perspective is his.  So am I supposed to sympathize?  Or am I supposed to pass judgment?  I suspect that I am supposed to pass judgment.  But if I'm busy judging him, then as a reader I'm setting myself way outside of the context and above his actions.  I'm saying to myself, "Well, clearly he is wrong.  He should know he is doing wrong, because I know that he is wrong."  It's not too much of a leap for the reader to think, "Well, I could never be in this situation, and if I were, I would not act this way, because I know it is wrong."  Being inside Hermes's head simply pounds the message--this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong.  As the reader, I'm not feeling it.  And so I'm not really learning and experiencing along with the character at this point.  How can I?  Even as a teen reader, I'm morally superior--not necessarily because I'm truly morally superior, but because (and here we get into narrative theory) the author has implied that the reader is morally superior by placing the reader in a position of judging rather than a position of empathizing.  The moment that a reader can think, I can totally see myself doing that, or I feel so sorry for what s/he is going through, the judgment becomes more difficult.  But I can't imagine too many of Doman's readers thinking either of those things.  Hermes has just acted like a total creepy stalker--definitley stepping over a line, and not just the simple "taking it too far and having sex" line.

So that's where I start.  I rather feel like the whole "how they had sex" is unbelievable.  Had they been kissing, and both wondering whether they would or not, or simply not thinking and doing, that would have seemed more realistic, and made it seem less like a statuatory rape situation (it's a good thing he hadn't turned 18 yet!).

So my second problem. Hermes is an imperfect moral compass, yes.  But it remains true that he is  the moral compass of the novel thus far.  He is Catholic.  She is atheist or agnostic, and completely ignorant of religion.

Now, we don't know his family terribly well, but his brothers hardly seem the model of virtue.  They have definitely bullying tendencies.  And his brother Christopher seems pretty good at scamming on chicks (to use the colloquial).  He snatches Melissa out from under Hermes in the first three pages of the book or so.  Definitely a ladies' man, and no telling how far he takes it.  So there's no telling how his moral upbrining has been.  Their parents seem pretty good--father in politics notwithstanding (maybe he'll have his own sex scandel in a chapter or two, but that's doubtful with the way it has been set up so far).  The family is overtly Catholic--not just passively so.  They have a priest over for tea (and vocation scouting) regularly.  And all boys have attended Catholic school.  I have no reason to suspect that the values imparted to Hermes have been faulty--which is good, because it at least doesn't provide an additional "out" for the reader who wishes to judge Hermes:  "Well my Catholic upbringing was better--I wouldn't fall into that trap," etc. etc.

And therein lies the problem.  If Hermes knows he is sinning (and he does), and his upbringing and values are trustworthy from the reader's perspective (and I have no reason to think that they'll break down in the future chapters), and his Catholicism is orthodox, then that means that the assumptions he makes about sex and sin are supposed to be read as basically correct--because he is going against his conscience when he acts.  It is possible that his understanding is meant to seem flawed, but I have no reason to think that his ideas about Catholic sexual morality are supposed to be extreme.  And yet, I find them to be exactly that.

Hermes' first misstep occurs when he climbs Raphaela's tower and sees her undressing--quite by accident.  He acknowledges her innocence.  He knows he should look away.  But he can't.  He has seen naughty magazines (though is not accustomed to viewing them), and sees that she is real.  He can't look away.  He sees her naked.  (She's compared to a child here, by the way--which I still find disturbing, even if it is an intentional move...)  And he can't look away.  And his next conclusion is that "from a moral perspective, he would have been better off if he had been spotted and shot on the way up."  And I find that incredibly disturbing.  Because really?  This was not a willful act.  Certainly he should have stopped looking.  But I heard a priest offer in a homily once that if he found himself entranced by a pretty girl, admiring her in ways that he perhaps should not, he said a prayer of thankfulness for her beauty.  I found that an amazing--and imminently practical--testimony.  Our protagonist is not so morally mature, but to condemn himself so fully--especially since he had a lot of other deceit that should have been confessed that was much worse than accidentally seeing a naked girl--seems incredibly harsh.  We can perhaps chalk it up to moral immaturity, so I'll move on...

Hermes's next rhetorical move is to declare her "mentally deflowered."  Now, in my book, his peek is a violation of her privacy, and if we're working with feminist--yes, feminist!!--theory, she has been subjected to his "Gaze," which is a male, patriarchal gaze, and is akin to metaphorical rape.  But if she is as innocent as a child undressing, then his accidental viewing can't really violate her. So...  is the reader to believe that (as feminist theory would suggest), she has been sexually violated?  Has she been changed by his glance?  Or is he justifying his future actions by declaring her to be already ruined?  I am disturbed by the implication that she has been deflowered by his accidental viewing.  It had nothing to do with her.  I see it as a violation, yes, but to have Hermes use the phrase suggests that this is a Catholic interpretation.  And I do not think that to look at a woman lustfully deflowers her.  That speaks to a change in her, when, in fact, the lust changes him.  A violation--yes.  A change in her--no.  Let's not grant The Gaze the full weight of feminist theory and imbue it with moral significance.

So what does Jesus say?  Our hero remembers:  "'He who looks at a woman with lust commits adultery,' Jesus had warned. He knew it. And he knew that merely looking wasn’t going to be enough for him much longer."  So first, the actual Bible verse emphasizes the change in him rather than her.  But when Hermes says that "merely looking wasn’t going to be enough for him much longer," a couple of things happen.  First, he evokes the Law.  And interestingly, he emphasizes the Law in a way that rather feels like the way the Jews treat the Law according to St. Paul (more on that in a bit).  But the second thing is, Hermes makes a quick jump from accident to fascination to lust to action--and the first three steps are somewhat collapsed, and happen in an instant.  He's neither scared by the feeling nor intimidated by the prospect of deflowering the girl whose innocence he lamented a moment ago.  Nope.  It's a slippery slope--and a fast one.  No performance anxiety here.  We don't even get a glimpse of Hermes wondering whether she will want to.  And yet, before seeing her naked, sex doesn't seem to have entered his mind.  The moral?  Never look at a naked girl.  Because we know where that leads!  (Remember that he has already declared himself better dead rather than see her naked--and while I get the reference to plucking out your eye if it causes you to sin, it wasn't really his eye that caused the problem! The real problem happens when he decides to keep climbing into her tower...)

To emphasize the legalism of Hermes' thinking, and the slippery slope, he thinks to  himself:  "He couldn’t go up to receive communion, tomorrow, not with lust on his soul."  And on one sense, this is good, sound thinking.  Technically, perfect contrition and intent to go to Confession, combined with the intentionality of the sin (or lack thereof), might have meant that he could take Communion.  But that's a bit technical--too technical--for the story.  So he has condemned himself fully.  His sin must, by implication, be mortal, meaning that Hermes has judged it to be both serious and conscious.  I still quibble with the "conscious" part, though it gets "conscious" pretty fast.  So he has condemned himself--by the Law: by taking the instinctive lust and applying it to himself in a legalistic manner, complete with penalty, he has condemned himself.  At that point, it seems that since he will not live up to virtue, he can only continue with sin.  And so he does.  (Perhaps I am misreading what St. Paul has to say in Romans about the Law vs. Faith, but had Hermes turned his mind to faith rather than judging himself legalistically, it seems that he would have given himself a bit more of a chance...)

The icing on the cake is, for me, the most destructive idea of all for a reader, and yet it seems to be coming from a frankly Catholic perspective, albeit Hermes' guilty perspective:

She should have been a bride, resplendent in white, with a ring on her finger and joy on her face in the sunlight to show the world she was loved. If he had really loved her, he would have given her that.  

But he had taken that away from her. And left her with— what? The chance to watch him steal away into the shadows like a thief? And she didn’t even realize what he had taken away from her. Instead of feeling like Romeo leaving Juliet, he felt like a dog skulking off with a piece of stolen meat. An animal. No, lower than an animal. She had trusted him. He had wanted her. And he had taken her.  

And she would always be with him. And he would always be with her. Whether they wanted it or not.

She is ruined, and he would always be with her and she with him, because they had ruined each other--a permanent bond that registers here as more violation.  The metaphor, "he felt like a dog skulking off with a piece of stolen meat," is particularly unsavory.  Is she a piece of meat?  Is he a dog?  But more importantly, is she a piece of meat???  Stolen meat???  This does not bode well for countless women who are deflowered before becoming brides--whether or not that choice or state of being is the ideal or morally preferable one.  Where did he get this idea?  Catholicism?  That's what the reader is lead to believe.

Recently, an article by Calah Alexander discussing the problems with abstinence-only education came to my attention (H/T Melanie).  It was written from a Catholic perspective, so it was not voicing a problem with abstinence, only with how it is presented to young people.  The article was occasioned by the testimony of Elizabeth Smart, whose will to resist kidnapping and sexual abuse was broken because abstinence-only education conditioned her to feel like a "chewed piece of gum."

I did not experience abstinence-only sex ed.  I had the biological kind that taught you how to prevent pregnancy and STDs.  And it was fine.  Nicely amoral.  It didn't make a huge impression, but it was informative.  I would be okay with having my children taught the same things.  So this account of abstinence-only education was a bit shocking, and I can immediately see how it would be damaging to the psyche.  And yet, here it is in Rapunzel Let Down.

I suppose it's admirable on some level that Hermes feels bound to her at all.  But on such terms as these!! And I know from reviews that she becomes pregnant.  And he goes to prison.  And wow!--they are completely ruined.  So the natural consequence of sex out of wedlock is. . . ruin and despair.  This actually doesn't seem too different from the prevailing attitude about unwed motherhood or unexpected pregnancy--but the time frame is shifted back to the initial act rather than to the resulting pregnancy.

I understand that the book is supposed to be hopeful (eventually).  I understand that the book is supposed to be dark because it deals with these "issues."  But it also presents an unrealistic and potentially damaging vision of premarital sex--how it happens, why it happens, and how it should be regarded by a moral person.  The emphasis is squarely on judgment, and does not ask the reader to experience the fear and pain--at least at this particular moment.  And for these reasons, I can't help but reject it.  Again.  *sigh*

Post-script:  It has occurred to me that some might question my claim above that "the whole 'how they had sex' is unbelievable.  Had they been kissing, and both wondering whether they would or not, or simply not thinking and doing, that would have seemed more realistic, and made it seem less like a statuatory rape situation."  Why should premarital sex be shown to be more consensual in this kind of novel?  Why should they get "carried away" mutually?  And well, the reason is this:  it's fine to condemn premarital sex (or any other kind of sin) when it obviously looks and feels wrong--as this does, and very much so.  But if it feels and seems good--and if there is real affection between the couple, at least for the duration of the sexual act, then it becomes a bit more like the confusion of actual premarital sex between attached people, and a bit more confusing as well--because how could such an act be objectively wrong?  It's a harder question to answer, and a harder truth to explore.  If everything goes to hell in a handbasket afterwards, the context of the sexual act (out-of-wedlock) becomes the problem, and provides a dramatic contrast to what the characters think is a neutral or good act (though it isn't, because of the context--right?).  The sex act itself remains good or neutral (at least potentially), and the context is highlighted as the sinful part of it.  Because again--it's easy to rationalize--"Well, their situation was different.  We are equal and in love."  And so the potential for real empathy with the characters and real instruction is broken down--because who can learn when the narrative places the reader in the role of spectator and in a position of moral superiority?

Voyager: Is it 'The Gaze' if She Asks for It? (A Reactionary Moment)

Yes, the title of this post is intentionally provocative and potentially inflammatory.  I refer to the theoretical concept of "The Gaze," but use a kind of rhetoric of rape--and the comparison is apt.  "The Gaze" is a concept that is very closely related to feminist theory, but has roots in psychoanalytic theory (Lacan and Freud) and film theory, since the lens of the camera is a male-controlled eye that focuses on the female object, and also directs the audience toward that object as an object.  "The Gaze," then, is (masculine) force that objectifies and sexualizes the (female) object.  Here's a pretty good explanation with the right basic citations.  There is a sense in which "the gaze" becomes a sort of visual rape--hence the title of the post.

And yet, as I evoke feminist theory, I believe that Gabaldon's novel is doing the opposite--or rather, evoking feminist theory, and then discounting it in a single gesture.  As she prepares to return to Jamie, 20 years after leaving him in the past, assuming that he would die on the Culloden battlefield, Claire seeks the opinion of her medical school friend, Joe Abernathy--the same friend who introduces her to romance novels, and with whom Frank believes (and if Frank is to believed, others believe) her to be having an affair.  The exchange is both amusing, and telling:

     “Am I sexually attractive?” I demanded. His eyes always reminded me of coffee drops, with their warm golden-brown color. Now they went completely round, enhancing the resemblance.
     Then they narrowed, but he didn’t answer immediately. He looked me over carefully, head to toe.
     “It’s a trick question, right?” he said. “I give you an answer and one of those women’s libbers jumps out from behind the door, yells ‘Sexist pig!’And hits me over the head with a sign that says ‘Castrate Male Chauvinists.’ Huh?”
     “No,” I assured him. “A sexist male chauvinist answer is basically what I want.”
     “Oh, okay. As long as we’re straight, then.” He resumed his perusal, squinting closely as I stood up straight.
     “Skinny white broad with too much hair, but a great ass,” he said at last. “Nice tits, too,” he added, with a cordial nod. “That what you want to know?” (280-281)

So how does this register with you, the reader?  Is Claire violated in this scenario?  She has literally asked for "the Gaze":  "a sexist male chauvinist answer is basically what I want."  She is asking to be appraised--like a piece of property, or like livestock--and Abernathy delivers.  And in fairly... direct terms.  And Claire is satisfied.

However, the two are not only equals, between whom there is no sexual attraction, between whom there is personal and professional respect, and between whom there is a shared literacy context (the romance novel), the two are further linked by a professional disadvantage arising from what might be considered identity politics--he is black, and she is female.  Neither of them, however, is an activist for the cause.

So what is going on here?

Well, this is a nicely subversive moment.  A black man and a white woman--both doctors--are undermining the seriousness of the feminist movement in general, and female objectification in particular.  As the novels suggest elsewhere that what the late-20th-Century historian might see as oppression might actually have been social necessity (see here, here and here) , or even biologically-based necessity, so the narrative suggests here that fear of sexual objectification might be slightly laughable--that sexual attraction between men and women is visual, and so that gaze which could be cast as objectifying, is part of the whole picture of passion.

Joe is familiar enough with feminism to know the risk that he runs, but he succumbs to her request--in a way that also stresses her race and difference from him.  A few pages earlier, he has asserted the essential physical differences between black people and white, so it reinforces that point when he calls her a “Skinny white broad with too much hair, but a great ass.”  Claire is not offended, but relieved.  She still has what Jamie wanted.

And if you want to see what real sexism looks like, see Claire's doctor's commentary on her sex life.

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

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 Romance Novel Within (More Metafiction)

I am not a reader of romance novels, but one or two have passed in front of my eyes over the years.  When I was in high school, one of my teachers (of English and History), one outspoken about her Christian belief and anything else that popped in her head, and who doubted (in a kind? way) my ability to write analysis, was an avid reader of romance novels.  Some of the girls in the class were also avid readers of romance, and she leant them books.  In retrospect, I'm not sure I approve, since the books are completely without substance, explicitly sexual, and promote highly unrealistic expectations of relationships, but at the time, I was curious, so she loaned me one.  I read it, returned it, and was done with the genre.  In fact, as I mentioned up front, I was sort of mortified when I was first reading Outlander to think that I might have to venture in the romance section of the bookstore to buy the next installments, and grateful when I found it shelved in "Literature" instead.  Literacy snob?  Perhaps I share that with Lord John Grey... to a degree.  But the real issue for me is that in order to escape into fiction, I have to have fiction that I can wrap my head around.  Obviously not a problem with Outlander.

If I read more than one romance novel (and I think I must have read one more), I did not notice a great distinction between them.  I did come away with a basic plot formula: strong-willed woman meets attractive, arrogant man with rippling muscles and flowing hair (possibly in disguise); they are attracted to one another, but hate one another; she is sexually naïve while he is sexually experienced; they torment one another, but can't resist the bubbling passion; they "get carried away" and have sex "without meaning to," which compromises her honor; he offers to marry her/marries her against her will; she still hates him, until he tames her, and she doesn't any more.  They live happily ever after many gratuitous scenes of fornication all along the way.  Obviously, Outlander doesn't fit the formula (forced marriage notwithstanding).  But continuing the subtle metafiction joke, which pokes fun at the Outlander novels' characteristic features beginning with Jamie's conversation with Lord John about Pamela, Chapter 14 is a romance novel microcosm.

My first (and almost only) romance novel went something like this:

Arrogant prince has to disguise himself.  He presents himself and his situation to a lesser nobleman, who knows who he is, and reluctantly agrees to permit the prince to work in the stables with the horses--noble beasts with which the prince is well-acquainted.  The nobleman has a daughter--youngish, strong-willed, sexually inexperienced--who is attracted to the new stablehand, but views him with contempt because of his station, and so torments him.  At some point, she asks him to "teach her about kissing," which he does.  When she feels him harden against her copious skirts, and when he begins to feel the inside of her thigh, etc. etc., she asks whether this is "part of kissing." He lies, and continues, eventually losing control and deflowering her in the stables.  She finally realizes what has just happened.  He goes immediately to her father, who is inexplicably overjoyed to see his daughter wed to a stablehand, and he leaves with her--for Scotland.  Yes.  Scotland was part of the scenario.  She is captured by highwaymen and nearly raped (again?), but he saves her.  This part is fuzzy, but I think he offers to set her free, but she realizes she loves him and vice versa.  She finds out that he is the prince, and they live happily ever after.

I have no idea what the name of the book might have been.  I think my second/other romance novel involved pirates, but it was even less memorable than this one.

Compare Chapter 14 of Voyager:

Dispossessed ex-laird and prisoner Jamie is brought by Lord John to Helwater, where he is to serve as groom for a noble, not-so-wealthy family.  He immediately catches the attention of the elder daughter Geneva, a spoiled headstrong girl, but remains carefully aloof.  At some point, she announces to him that she is to be married, that she disapproves of the match, and wants Jamie to come to her bed so that she doesn't have to lose her maidenhead to a nasty old man.  He is completely unwilling, but she threatens and then blackmails him so that he feels he must agree in order to protect those for whom he cares most.  She is completely ignorant, and Jamie must teach her about sex.  He endeavors to be slow, but has been celibate for several years.  He has also never been with a virgin.  So when he enters her, and she protests out of fear, he claps a hand to her mouth, tells her "No," and...  finishes anyway.  She professes love for him, and he gently chastises her.  He also gently fulfills his part of the bargain, serving and servicing her throughout the night as a lover and as the servant he more truly is.  He departs before dawn, and she is married as planned.

The parallel is striking.

If you find any complaints about Jamie or the novel on internet message boards and reviews, they likely cite this scene as rape.  This reading says more about our society's hyper-sensitivity to victimization** than it does about the actual events of the text, as the only time Jamie in the chapter that actually has any power--in the initiation and orchestration of the sexual act--he is, in fact, not in control because, in succumbing to Geneva's demands and beginning the sexual act, he has, in fact, relinquished what control he had of his bodily urges.  Given the circumstances (which include not only explicit consent, but coercion and blackmail from Geneva), 18th Century law would have convicted him--to flogging or perhaps even hanging--but 20th or 21st Century law likely would not.  Public opinion is up for grabs.

However, as my romance novel summary demonstrates, rape is, in fact, a convention of the romance genre--often a catalyst for both love and sensual pleasure, and a means to the "taming" of the spoiled or willful female.  If Jamie's experience at Helwater is a kind of microcosm of the romance novel scenario, then, the rape suggestion is no doubt part of the narrative strategy.  If we unpack the Voyager romance scenario, a kind of critique emerges:

• Sexual power dynamics are not always as they might seem, particularly when the male is of a lower class or inferior station.
• Sex can be scary, even to a woman who feels she is in control.
• Sexual desire is not the same as love--a point that is made explicitly in the dialogue between Jamie and Geneva--nor does it necessarily lead to love.
• When the dearly bought night is over, events continue as they would have anyway.  (Well, almost...)

A point that is perhaps left for the reader to figure out is that things might have gone much, much worse for Geneva had Jamie been like one of the other grooms--that is, had he not been an honorable man who was determined to honor her femininity and his masculinity through the sexual act (210).  But he is a laird in disguise.  Unlike the typical romance hero, Jamie is a very well-developed character, whom the reader recognizes as having self-respect, respect for women, and respect for the power and sacredness of sexuality.  He continually controls his very just anger toward Geneva--anger which, if unleashed, might have lead to true brutality.  The anger and desire for domination and control--which enters into the romance novel sex scene--is not present.  Jamie is "angry, scared, and most mightily roused" (214), but does not wish to dominate or control her. Rather, "[h]e closed his eyes and breathed deeply, striving for calm, seeking for gentleness" (214).  His unwilling empathy, response to her trust, and admiration of her courage does, in fact, lead to a small amount of tenderness.

It is a racy scene, to be sure, but inevitably a sad one, which leaves Jamie "feeling empty of everything" (218)--hardly the desired effect if the novel had been of the romance genre.

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

**Not meaning to undermine the seriousness of rape, simply to critique the ways in which we make everyone a victim on the one hand, and yet confuse the issue when there are real victims involved.

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.