Today’s post is also about vocations and roles in Voyager. My last post dealt mainly with Claire. Here is the link: Are Vocations Predestined or Inherent? Of note is Claire’s musing about the palm reading that Mrs. Graham did:
. . . “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” (ch.7).
I guess that Mrs. Graham’s explanation says it all. It brings to mind one of the major themes in the series: Predestination vs. Free Will. It seems that there is an element of choice. It seems that Claire has something innate when it comes to healing people based on the information that some of Master Raymond’s descendants are healers or doctors, and have some interest in herbs. However, it is her choice to be what she is. For example, Geillis also has some interest in herbs but is not a healer. She uses her innate abilities or interests to murder as opposed to Claire. The natural abilities or even affinities are affected by the experiences and the environment in which one develops.
Claire also expresses something about Jamie based on what she observed when she lived with him.
. . . “He wasn’t a man to turn away from anything he thought his job. Dangerous or not. And I think he won’t have felt himself wasted – no matter what happened to him” (ch. 7)
This description reminds the reader all the sacrifices that Jamie did for his family and tenants even if he was no longer the Laird. His marriage to Laoghaire can also be seen as something that he thought as “his job” (I will write a separate post for this one).
The Role of the Laird
The theme of Jamie endangering the lives of the residents of Lallybroch culminates in the incident in which Fergus loses his hand. As discussed in a former post, he feels useless about protecting his sister and tenants. Similarly, he cannot protect Fergus since he has to remain concealed to avoid everybody close to him being accused of hiding him. While Fergus is being attacked, Jamie has the impulse to go and protect him, but he stops himself. He feels useless one more time. Of note is the following thought that Jamie has before Fergus’s hand gets cut off (ch. 6):
Perhaps it was something in the attitudes of the soldiers, an irritableness of mood that communicated itself to him in the cave. Perhaps only the sense of doom that had clung to him since Culloden, as though everything in his vicinity were tainted; at risk by virtue only of being near him. Whether he had heard the sound of the saber or not, his body had tensed itself to spring before he saw the silver arc of the blade swing through the air.
At this stage, Jamie does not know what Fergus’s fate will be. He fears for Fergus’s life, and he is willing to protect him. He stops because he needs to keep everybody else safe.
Later, Jamie is telling his sister that he is planning to have somebody from Lallybroch to give him away to the English. Jenny expresses her concern about him getting killed in the process, but Jamie does not care anymore. (Does that sound like Claire’s description of him?) It is similar to Jamie’s wishes of dying at Culloden since his life lost meaning once Claire was gone.
Of note is Mary MacNab’s explanation of why Jamie was her laird even though Lallybroch was no longer his.
“It isna Young Jamie that’s doing what you are,” she answered with decision. “And it isna your sister that’s asked me to do what I’m doin’. Turn round.” (ch. 6)
Overall, Jamie’s sacrifice is typical of an honorable laird. His actions show that he is still the laird to his tenants. He is giving them protection and wealth.
Jamie’s protection extended to not only his tenants but also to Claire and Brianna. When Fionna relates the story of the Dunbonnet, she details how his tenants were starving during the famine that followed Culloden. Of course, Claire feels uncomfortable listening to Fionna’s account.
A cold chill swept over me at her words. I saw the faces of the Lallybroch inhabitants – the people I had known and loved – pinched with cold and starvation. Not only horror filled me; there was guilt, too. I had been safe, warm, and well fed, instead of sharing their fate – because I had done as Jamie wanted, and left them. . . (ch. 7)
Claire realizes that Brianna also shared the same wellbeing while many at Lallybroch did not.
The Laird at Ardsmuir
Jamie’s musing about a man’s destiny is prominent after the event in which he is flogged for carrying a piece of cloth with a tartan check. Of course, he did it to protect Angus MacKenzie, the one responsible for having it.
Odd, he thought dimly. How whenever you had a group of men, they seemed to find their proper jobs, no matter whether it was a thing they’d done before. Morrison had been a cottar, like most of them. Likely a good hand with his beasts, but not thinking much about it. Now he was the natural healer for the men, the one they turned to with a gripping belly or a broken thumb. Morrison knew little more than the rest, but the men turned to him when they were hurt, as they turned to Seumus Mac Dubh for reassurance and direction. And for justice. (ch. 12)
The passage portrays the case of Morrison, a Scottish prisoner at Ardsmuir, who has never been a healer in the past. However, it seems that he has some innate healing abilities that he started to put into practice due to his condition of being a prisoner. At the same time, the paragraph reveals that Jamie is aware that others see him as a leader. As he witnesses the beating of Angus MacKenzie by other inmates, he is unable to protect the young man. He starts analyzing the nature of the prisoners: womanizer, bully or alcoholic. He wonders from where the attributes that shape a man’s nature come from. Of note is his assessment of Claire’s gift. As Frank, Jamie knows what her gift is.
. . . who knew what had sent her to him, had thrust her into the life she had surely not been born to? And yet she had known what to do, what she was meant to be, despite that. Not everyone was so fortunate as to know their gifts. (ch.12)
Note the similarity between Jamie’s assessments and Frank’s:
. . .”You’ve known forever who you are. Do you realize at all how unusual it is to know that?” (ch. 7 – Frank’s point of view)
Since it is easy for other characters to read Claire’s mind and abilities, it is possible to speculate whether people in the fictional past of Outlander considered healing as an innate gift that was inherited. Mrs. FitzGibbons thought at a certain point in the first book that Claire was related to Davie Beaton. Of course, we would never know, but it could be the case. Could he be another of Raymond’s descendants?
Jamie notices how the relief that Angus experience by touching his head. It is a comforting touch from somebody Angus sees as his laird. Jamie comes to the realization that he has innate leadership abilities: “He had been born a leader, then bent and shaped further to fit such a destiny” (ch. 12). Overall, Jamie has natural leadership abilities that he applies to the circumstances that he finds himself into.
Thanks for reading!
Sources
Gabaldon, Diana. Voyager. 1994. New York: Bantam Dell. 2002. Print.