Voyager: Claire's Vocation (again)

So the question of vocation gets sticky when tangled with Roger's self-perception and first tentative questioning of why he is what he is, and Frank's insecurity with Claire's vocation and passion and his relative lack of vocation, and passion.  As Claire is the central character and common denominator, her own experience of vocation carries greater weight, and Roger and Frank at this point serve to "fill in" the picture of Claire.  So it is worth noting when Claire remembers Mrs. Graham's fortune telling as it reflects on fate and individual destiny:

“The lines in your hand change as you change,” she had said. “It’s no so much what you’re born with, as what ye make of yourself.” (107)

So destiny.  Is it a thing?  Identity.  Is it fixed?  Both seem to be a series of choices.  And that means a lot for a time traveler.  It also means a lot for a mother.

And it is as a mother with a vocation that I am interested in all of this.  The word "vocation" is one I would not necessarily have used before becoming Catholic.  At root, it means a sort of divine calling--usually to the priesthood and religious life.  But it has been expanded to give value to work in general, or for specific roles--motherhood in particular.  It can be used to validate women who are mothers, and for whom motherhood is their primary vocation--because motherhood absolutely is still a calling!  But it is often not acknowledged as such--often not even acknowledged as a valid lifestyle choice, much less a vocation.  On the other hand, marking motherhood as a vocation heightens the conflict inherent in choosing motherhood in addition to another occupation--particularly an ambitious one.  Because the rhetoric of "vocation" is somewhat absolute--and having dual "vocations" is not generally permissible in the rhetoric of vocation.

Now, this is problematic when you have marriage and motherhood as vocations, though for men, having a vocation as a husband and father is seamless with providing for the  family through work.  The specific type of work isn't generally mentioned as a "vocation"--which is the more secular meaning--except in the case of privileged service professions, like teaching and medicine, interestingly enough.  Really, the concept works best in the context of consecrated religious life, since being a priest, brother, or religious sister does preclude other vocations--marriage and parenthood most obviously--it gets tricky again with the diaconate.  What emerges is that sometimes vocation means something like "work," while other times it means something like "lifestyle," but it always means something like "calling."

It is from this context--and the context of a woman who is a mother, and who feels called to a particular kind of work, from which I am currently estranged, and which seemed much more compatible in many ways with motherhood than what I am now doing (working 40 hours rather than holding an academic teaching position)--that I write about vocation.  So when Claire mentions her competing vocations, and laments that she once experienced a unified identity, I take note:

Once I had thought I was whole—had seemed to be able to love a man, to bear a child, to heal the sick—and know that all these things were natural parts of me, not the difficult, troubled fragments into which my life had now disintegrated.  (107)

Perhaps predictably, we return to the (romanticized) difference in life between the 20th Century and the 18th.  And while part of this is no doubt Jamie, part of it is also the seamlessness of existence in the  (romanticized) 18th Century--which Claire only gets to experience because she is married to Jamie.  I doubt that Dougal McKenzie would have permitted such freedom, or enabled such unity.  And yet, Jamie epitomizes his age for the reader.  There is passion and vitality, there is not time for anxiety, because survival is the first priority.  And so Claire enjoys a more unified existence.  And so in the 20th Century, she throws herself into medicine, in order to recover a sense of purpose if she can't recover the wholeness.  It is hardly a surprise that there are bumps, but the consolations are what elevate Claire's work to a calling:

“Frank was right, in a way, though. It isn’t necessarily easier if you know what it is you’re meant to do— but at least you don’t waste time in questioning or doubting. If you’re honest— well, that isn’t necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you’re honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you’re less likely to feel that you’ve wasted your life, doing the wrong thing.”  (110)

Such is the epitome of "vocation."

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

Voyager: Frank's Vocation -or- The Supportive Spouse

In a way, this is another post about Claire's vocation.  But in particular, it is about how her vocation affects her 20th Century husband, Frank, and his own concept of his vocation.  The conflict between a man's and a woman's vocation is a very 20th Century phenomenon.  When women are limited to vocations that complement those of men (and notice I did not say "women's vocation is to serve men," or women's vocations are limited to home and family," because I feel that those statements are too stereotypically feminist and reductive), then there could be no conflict.  Even in the 18th Century, Jamie did not feel that his own role was threatened by Claire's vocation--by other things, certainly, and sometimes by Claire's 20th Century sensibility, but not specifically by her vocation.  The reasons for this difference remain to be seen...

During their discussion of vocation, upon hearing that Frank made Claire's medical career possible, Roger remarks to Claire that he didn't think Frank would have approved.  Claire confirms--Frank did not approve.  This is important in itself, because Claire's vocation did indeed come into direct conflict with Brianna's wellbeing--hence, with Claire's other vocation, and what many today, especially in religious circles, would still see as her primary vocation: motherhood.  The narrative here evokes a long debate, since pioneering voices in women's rights--Wollstonecraft and Gilman in particular, for very different reasons--felt that not every woman (whether or not she had borne a child) was suited for motherhood as a vocation.  The event (which I'm not going to recount) that brings the matter to a head for Frank and Claire is sufficiently dramatic, but, though Frank does, the reader is never expected to judge Claire as an unfit mother.

Nevertheless, Frank, in a not-so-rare moment of clarity, voices the contrast between Roger's sense of a "natural" vocation as something he continued to do out of habit, and Claire's as something she was driven from within to continue to do:

“Ah, Claire.” He spoke impatiently, but with a tinge of affection nonetheless. “You’ve known forever who you are. Do you realize at all how unusual it is to know that?”  (105)

Frank contrasts her passion with his sense of simply doing very well one of many things he might have done well:

"I haven’t got that absolute conviction that there’s something in life I’m meant to do— and you have.”
     “Is that good?” The edges of my nostrils were sore, and my eyes puffed from crying.
     He laughed shortly. “It’s damned inconvenient, Claire. To you and me and Bree, all three. But my God, I do envy you sometimes.” (106)

That envy becomes even more clear as Frank contrasts his own scholarly occupation, which, like Roger's, does not seem to ascend to the level of a vocation, with the men whom he and others study:

“To have that passion for anything”— a small twitch tugged the corner of his mouth—“or anyone. That’s quite splendid, Claire, and quite terribly rare.” He squeezed my hand gently and let it go, turning to reach behind him for one of the books on the shelf beside the table.
     It was one of his references, Woodhill’s Patriots, a series of profiles of the American Founding Fathers.
     He laid his hand on the cover of the book, gently, as though reluctant to disturb the rest of the sleeping lives interred there.
     “These were people like that. The ones who cared so terribly much— enough to risk everything, enough to change and do things.  Most people aren’t like that, you know. It isn’t that they don’t care, but that they don’t care so greatly.” He took my hand again, this time turning it over. One finger traced the lines that webbed my palm, tickling as it went.
     “Is it there, I wonder?” he said, smiling a little. “Are some people destined for a great fate, or to do great things? Or is it only that they’re born somehow with that great passion— and if they find themselves in the right circumstances, then things happen? It’s the sort of thing you wonder, studying history  …   but there’s no way of telling, really. All we know is what they accomplished. (106-107)

In the midst of this HUGE, AMAZINGLY HUGE foreshadowing, I am curious about those "circumstances."  Frank's question seems particularly valid and compelling, considering that Claire and Jamie found themselves in those circumstances, on numerous occasions--Claire in World War II, and then in the 18th Century.  Only back in the postwar 20th Century is she compelled less by circumstance than by inner passion.

Frank lacks that passion, but--like Roger--is drawn by it to Brianna. But he is somewhat absolved, perhaps, because he did not have the circumstances to inspire passion.  He can blame his more lukewarm existence in a more passionless age (World War II notwithstanding).  Here again, as in Outlander, Frank represents a time period that is lacking immediacy and passion.

Frank perhaps redeems himself further when, in deference to Claire's vocation--which he defines with reference to an inner calling and passion--he offers his own brand of support (albeit reluctantly):

“I said,” he repeated patiently, “that I’ll take Bree. She can come from her school to the university, and play at my office until I’m ready to come home.” (107)

This is a gesture that was not only alien to Frank--it was alien to the 1960s.  In fact, in certain academic cultures, it is still alien, though I have believed academia to be more family-friendly than most professions.  For a man to make this kind of sacrifice at this moment in history is about as much an element of fantasy as travel back in time through standing stones. However, as a narrative gesture, it speaks to the necessity of support for a mother who would accomplish external goals.  Claire had to have some support on the parenting side, otherwise she would not--could not--have become a doctor.

However, Frank's attitude does not make things easier for Claire.  His support is itself a condemnation (he has already implied that she will "pay" for her passion), and a punishment, and he remains slightly despicable:

     “Why?” I asked bluntly. “It isn’t that you’re dead keen on my being a doctor; I know that.”
     “No,” he said thoughtfully. “It isn’t that. But I do think there isn’t any way to stop you— perhaps the best I can do is to help, so that there will be less damage to Brianna.” His features hardened slightly then, and he turned away. (108)

However, his actions did facilitate Claire's career.  And perhaps Frank is justified in his hurt, and in his assessment.  Claire is not a motherly mother.  But he is well-established by this time as an unsympathetic character.

As historical commentary, it is worth noting that Jamie was more accepting of Claire's vocation than the 20th Century Frank, just as Claire's healing seems--in some ways--more of an anomaly in the 20th Century.  Frank wants Claire's identity to be more one-dimensional than Jamie.  Which perhaps makes for a reactionary commentary:  do 20th Century men keep tighter reign on women because, unlike in the 18th Century, men's power is not absolute?

As for what motivated Frank...

“So far as he ever felt he had a destiny— something he was really meant to do— he felt that Brianna was it,” Claire said. She stirred her cocoa meditatively.  (108)

This is a moment in the narrative that should give every reader pause, as the implications are painfully profound.  In Outlander, Frank is unable to entertain the notion of adoption--his first revelation of his selfishness--because he does not feel that he can ever truly love a child that is not his own.  And yet, he does more than adopt Brianna--he accepts her as his own, even knowing that she is not a child of his body.  Perhaps a noble act, it nevertheless carries quite a bit of selfishness.  He cannot father children.  He will never have another child.  And... he needs a purpose.

What does it mean to have as your purpose--the closest thing to a passion-driven vocation--the nurturing of the child you will never have?  Particularly as a man obsessed with genealogy.  The position has the potential to be deeply humbling and uncomfortable.  He is, in essence, in love with another man's progeny, when in the first place, he has a debt of honor to receive the woman who has been married to another man and is carrying another man's child--by virtue of the fact that he (Frank) is still married to her.  That's a bit of a twisted cruller.  But in a way, Frank is bound by another debt of honor.  One might wonder if--in her full disclosure--Claire has told Frank about Jack Randall and Jamie.  The Frasers and Randalls seem to be bound by blood and sex--and now, honor.

I have said before that Voyager feels purgatorial in some ways.  Is it too much to suggest that in Frank's adoption of Brianna--by making her the focus and the meaning of his life--he is atoning for his own sin of adultery and his ancestor's sins toward Brianna's father?

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

Voyager: Translation and Torment (A Literacy Moment)

This post is sort of a side note in two different ways--it is a side note to the last post because it discusses a literacy context that frames the scene in which Jamie waits anxiously in the house as his sister Jenny gives birth.  It is also a side note to the literacy theme of Voyager (and if I haven't said it before, I think that Voyager has more of a literacy sub-text than the others--at least up to this point in the series).

As Jamie enters the house to wait for Jenny to give birth--and to be with her in spirit, if not actually in the room--he surprises a neighbor, who is reading to the children from the Bible:

     “ ‘ And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression,’  ” read Mrs. Kirby. There was a loud, rolling scream from upstairs, that seemed to go on and on. Mrs. Kirby paused for a moment, to allow everyone to appreciate it, before resuming the reading. Her eyes, pale gray and wet as raw oysters, flickered toward the ceiling, then rested with satisfaction on the row of strained faces before her.
     “ ‘ Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if she continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety,’  ” she read. Kitty burst into hysterical sobbing and buried her head in her sister’s shoulder. Maggie Ellen was growing bright red beneath her freckles, while her elder brother had gone dead-white at the scream. (66)

It is an interesting literacy moment because of the type of literacy represented.  First of all, it is didactic.  There is both an implicit and an explicit lesson.  The words that Mrs. Kirby is reading indict every female in the guilt of Eve--not an uncommon argument, even in contemporary Abrahamic religions--and that childbearing saves women.  Implicitly, pain in childbirth is punishment (a point that is explicit in Genesis 3:16), and Jenny--for some of them, their own mother--is an exemplar of this.  (I do wonder what a literal reading of the Biblical passages would mean for women who opt for an epidural... No pain, no heavenly gain?)

I do take issue with this scene, as it assumes that women in the 18th Century would not have had pain management techniques.  A well-prepared woman need not scream, even without modern medicine, and Jenny would have had the wisdom of her midwife, of women around her, and of her own previous births, as well as the endurance of a woman who was used to having to endure other pain and discomfort in daily life!  But then, this vision of childbirth goes along with an agenda that is subtly apparent throughout the books--the danger, hardship, and pain of childbearing.  The combination of this Bible verse and childbirth in this particular novel suggests childbearing as a Purgatorial act for women--although the context (the cruelty of Mrs. Kirby's didacticism; Jamie's intervention) argues strongly that if Christianity teaches that childbirth is Purgatorial, that this is evidence of Christian teaching about women being skewed.

The other reason that it is interesting is because of the text, which is from 1 Timothy 2:14-15.  No, I'm not that good.  That's what Google is for.  The text also appears to be taken from the King James Version, which is another thing I need to ponder.  The King James Version, while poetic, is a notoriously bad translation, as a semester of Ancient Greek made clear.  Just for fun, here's a sample from Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin. I'm a little fuzzy on whether an 18th Century Scottish Catholic household would have a Bible in English, much less the King James Version (albeit the nod to the Stuarts).  I don't have a source that I can check for this a the moment, only the internet (I could go over to the library databases of the university for which I work, and in order to answer the question sufficiently, I would have to do more research than that...), but for now, I simply have the question:  To what extent was the King James Version of the Bible adopted by Catholics in/by the 18th Century?  I would expect that, in Scotland, the Bible would have been in Latin, or if possible, Gaelic, with an alternate translation being the third choice.  The dominant Catholic translation would have been the Douay-Rheims.  Jamie might have had a French Bible.  The question is an interesting one.  In the meantime, here are some parallel translations of the line in question.

Incidentally, here's the Douay-Rheims:

{2:14} And Adam was not seduced; but the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression.{2:15} Yet she shall be saved through child bearing; if she continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.

The language is much more Catholic.

Jamie enters in this mist of this troubling literacy moment, disperses the crowd and confiscates the Bible in displeasure.  It is a nice detail that Jenny’s bookshelf is "battered and scarred from the last incursion of Redcoats, three months ago." (67)  When he hears the sounds of Jenny's suffering, he unwillingly turns to the words in the book he holds--not verses this time, but records:

Hearing a prolonged moan from above, he glanced down involuntarily at the Bible in his hand. Not really wanting to, still he let the book fall open, showing the page at the front where the marriages, births, and deaths of the family were recorded. (67)

What follows in the novel is a text-based reminiscence of Jamie's family history, beginning (in a way) with the birth of his older brother, William:

     The entries began with his parents’ marriage. Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie. The names and the date were written in his mother’s fine round hand, with underneath, a brief notation in his father’s firmer, blacker scrawl. Marrit for love, it said— a pointed observation, in view of the next entry, which showed Willie’s birth, which had occurred scarcely two months past the date of the marriage.

Mention of William, and the record of his niece's death, encourage his consideration of all of the uncertainties, from the "what if" of his own inherited role as laird after his brother's death, to the "what if" of his inability to provide:

Closing the book, his eye caught the last entry— Caitlin Maisri Murray, born December 3, 1749, died December 3, 1749. Aye, if. If the Redcoats had not come on December 2, would Jenny have borne the child too early?  If they had had enough food, so that she, like the rest of them, was no more than skin and bones and the bulge of her belly, would that have helped?

Literacy, in these moments, causes introspection and torment.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.