Since the introduction of the Christie family in The Fiery Cross, several details have been dropped about the rivalry between Tom Christie and Jamie Fraser. Before the arrival of the fisher-folk, Jamie was the one everybody trusted and looked for advice or guidance at the Ridge.
The simple tract was that people came to Jamie for help more often than they did to Christie. Jamie had widespread respect and admiration, despite his crippled hand. Christie was not a personally popular man; he might well lose what social position he had, if he lost his ability to write. . . (A Breath of Snow and Ashes, ch. 21).
The impression that the reader gets at this stage of Tom is negative. He is jealous of Jamie, and in a way craves for a prominent position (something that he shares with his niece). He is also very proud. Of course, both Jamie and Tom are educated. However, Tom’s urban origins is one of the reasons why he considers the Scottish Highlanders uncouth. It is also mentioned that he never made an effort to speak the “barbarous tongue” of the Highlanders with the other prisoners at Ardsmuir (A Breath of Snow and Ashes, ch. 21). Being a city person, he sees the Highlanders as peasantry. This negative perception will be more prominent two centuries later as demonstrated by the conversation between Roger and Mr. Menzies.
“The parents . . .”
“If they’ve learnt the Gaelic from their own parents, they deliberately don’t teach it to their kids. And if they haven’t got it, they certainly make no effort to learn. It’s seen as backward, ignorant. Very much a mark of the lower classes.” (An Echo in the Bone, ch. 29).
Tom’s growing interest and intense passion and admiration for Claire complicate matters too. These feelings could simply make him more jealous of Jamie.
I was rather unsure as to exactly what had happened – or been happening – but relieved that Christie was gone. I’d felt like a handful of grain, trapped between two grindstones, both of them to grind each other’s faces, with no heed for the hapless corn in between (A Breath of Snow and Ashes, ch. 21).
This is Claire’s musing at a particular moment in which an altercation is taking place between Tom and Jamie. Basically Tom hurt his hand with a knife, and Claire takes this opportunity to fix the degeneration that was already expanding on the injured hand (Dupuytren’s contracture). During the surgical procedure, Jamie makes comments to Tom that could be considered both threatening and reassuring (this depends on the character’s point of view). After the operation, Tom tells Jamie that at least he would have a “honorable scar” (A Breath of Snow and Ashes, ch. 21). In this way he sends an indirect message to Jamie in regards to his scarred back.
Flogging wasn’t merely brutal; it was shameful – meant to permanently disfigure, as well as to hurt, advertising a criminal’s past as clearly as a branded cheek or cropped ear. . . (A Breath of Snow and Ashes, ch. 21)
Everybody who was a prisoner at Ardsmuir is aware that Jamie has been flogged before, but nobody knows what underwent between him and Jack Randall. Do the Ardsmuir men think that Jamie has been flogged in the past for committing a criminal act? Most likely not. They are aware that Jamie took the blame of holding a tartan to protect somebody else. Therefore it is possible for them to assume that Jamie was flogged for a similar reason in the past. Of note is Tom Christie’s perspective of the flogging at Ardsmuir.
“It was an act of extra . . . extraordinary . . . nobility and – and courage.” He looked at me, and shook his head slightly. “Im-incompre . . . hensible” (A Breath of Snow and Ashes, ch. 24).
Jamie sacrificed himself in order to save a young man from clan MacKenzie from bearing the scars of a criminal. Similarly, Tom will save Claire from being unfairly accused of murder by taking the blame of killing his niece, an act that does not make sense to Claire. Tom will emulate Jamie’s courage and nobleness because of love.
“I have yearned always, he said softly, ‘for love given and returned; have spent my life in the attempt to give my love to those who were not worthy of it. Allow me this: to give my life for the sake of one who is” (A Breath of Snow and Ashes, ch. 97).
Tom has never experienced love or fell in love with somebody. This is one of the reasons why his family is dysfunctional, a topic that I will write more about in a subsequent post.
Works Cited
Gabaldon, Diana. A Breath of Snow and Ashes. 2005. New York: Bantam Dell. 2006. Print.
– – -. An Echo in the Bone. 2009. New York: Bantam Dell. 2011. Print.