There is a misunderstanding between Jamie and Claire in Dragonfly in Amber. The separation that results from this misunderstanding is essential in the growth of both Jamie and Claire. The love and the trust they have for each other are put to the test.
The description of how Jamie injures Black Jack Randall in the duel scene is confusing. Part of the confusion is related to the fact that both Jonathan Randall and Claire start bleeding at the same time from the same area of the body. In fact, the first time I read that scene, I could not tell who is the victorious one until Jamie starts calling Claire. At this stage, the reader does not know the level of seriousness and the particular location of Black Jack’s injury.
. . . But vengeance knows no mercy, and it was not the exposed throat that the descending blade sought.
Through a blackening mist, I saw Jamie’s sword come down, graceful and deadly, cold as death. The point touched the waist of the doeskin breeches, pierced and cut down in a twisting wrench that darkened the fawn with a sudden flood of black-red blood.
The blood was a hot rush down my thighs, and the chill of my skin moved inward, toward the bone. . . (ch. 24)
The reader is led to believe that Jamie does play a role in Claire miscarrying Faith. It looks like Jamie is severing Claire’s reproductive organs. The description indicates the fact they will remain separated for a while. He will be imprisoned, and his wife will not know anything about him. Claire will not try to look for him since she believes that Jamie has broken the trust between them.
“He cared more for his honor than he did for me or his child or an innocent man,” I said bitterly. “I don’t care where he is; I never want to see him again!” (ch. 26)
. . . There had been a great trust between us, and Jamie had broken it, for the sake of revenge. . . (ch. 26)
Claire says that she does not care about Jamie anymore, which is not the case. Upon hearing about Jamie’s incarceration, she starts working for his release. Of course, Claire has the choice to leave him at the Bastille but opts to free him instead. She does care, and what Jamie experienced at Wentworth is in her head all the time. Another reason is the she needed him to thwart Prince Charles’s business enterprise with St. Germain. In regards to Faith’s fate, miscarriages tend to be more associated with the fetus not being viable due to an anomaly, the mother having a specific uterine condition which makes it impossible to keep carrying the baby, or even an immune system response. Of course, Claire eventually acknowledges these facts.
In retrospective, Claire recognizes that Jamie is the one who brought her back to life.
But I had come back from the dead. Only Jamie’s hold on my body had been strong enough to pull me back from that final barrier, and Master Raymond had known it. I knew that only Jamie himself could pull me back the rest of the way, into the land of the living. That was why I had run from him, done all I could to keep him away, to make sure he would never come near me again. I had no wish to come back, no desire to feel again. I didn’t want to know love, only to have it ripped away once more (ch. 28).
There are other cases in which Jamie brings Claire back to life. In A Breath of Snow and Ashes, there is the scene in which Claire almost dies after being poisoned by Malva. She is feverish and having out-of-body experiences, hallucinations caused by a dying mind. She decides to fight back for her life after seeing Jamie with Malva. The last few sentences of the passage are indicative of the relationship between Claire and Frank. Claire acknowledges that she stopped loving Frank the moment she fell in love with Jamie. She could not give Frank the love he probably wanted, even though she believed Jamie dead for many years. After loving Jamie, she does not want to risk loving somebody else due to the suffering it will bring due to separation or death. In regards to the bolded sentence, one notices one of the reasons why Claire decides to have intercourse with Louis XV. She wants to drive Jamie away by breaking the trust he has on her. It seems that she owes Jamie a debt, her life, a delicate topic between them. The following quote portrays a desperate Claire trying to stop Jamie from killing Black Jack for Frank to live in the twentieth century.
“You owe me your life, Jamie. Not once, twice over. I saved you from hanging at Wentworth, and when you had fever at the Abbey. You owe me a life, Jamie!” (ch. 21)
At this stage, Jamie does not owe Claire any life, something the he reminds her about in a later conversation between them. He saved her from Jonathan Randall at Fort William and also from getting burned at Cranesmuir. In regards to the “debt” paid to Louis XV, Claire thinks or tries to believe her actions are justified. She wanted to have Jamie free but also hurt him:
Hearing the gate of the palace shut behind me, I had closed my eyes and thought that I would never see Jamie again. And if by chance I did, I would rub his nose int he scent of roses, until his soul sickened and died (ch. 28).
“. . . I was so angry, Jamie – for the duel, and the baby. And because you’d forced me to do it. . . to go to Louis. I wanted to do something to drive you away, to make sure I never saw you again. I did it . . . partly . . . because I wanted to hurt you,” I whispered” (ch. 29).
As La Dame Blanche, Claire does not excel in hiding her feelings, and that is why Jamie figures out that she is not telling the whole story. He wants honesty from Claire. He requested that on their wedding night. Jamie relates:
“Ye said you wanted to hurt me. Well, the thought of you lying with the King hurt worse than the brand on my breast, or the cut of the lash on my naked back. But the knowledge that ye thought ye coulna trust me to love you is like waking from the hangman’s noose to feel the gutting knife sunk in my belly. . .”
Of course, telling lies and having intercourse with another man are serious but still secondary reasons to Jamie’s being disappointment. The main reason is related to his experience in engaging with non-consensual sex. He felt ashamed, and he thought that Claire would not want him back. He tried to send her back to her time. Of course, Claire opted to heal him physically and psychologically. Therefore, it does not make sense to him that Claire thought that having sex with the king, a traumatic experience, would drive Jamie away. What it signifies is that all the healing that Claire did to save Jamie is worthless.
I will be away this weekend so my comment about this week’s Outlander episode will be published on Monday night hopefully. I am also currently working on some other Outlander posts that will be published next week.
Featured Image is from Outlander-Online.com
Sources
Gabaldon, Diana. Dragonfly in Amber. New York: Bantam Dell, 1993. Print.