Outlander

Fiery-haired, tall, and muscled Scottish 23-year-old Jamie enters Claire’s life first as her patient, then as her friend and protector, and later as her husband and lover. Claire and Jamie first form a bond when Claire successfully puts Jamie’s arm back into its socket in Chapter 3. Jamie later warms Claire as they ride toward Castle Leoch, throwing his plaid around her after noticing her shiver with cold. Jamie shows an appetite and attention to Claire that Frank did not. The opposite of Claire’s thin, dark-haired, and scholarly husband Frank, Claire’s attraction to Jamie makes Claire wonder how she can love two men so dissimilar.

Jamie is defined by his honesty, for better or for worse. Upon wedding Claire, he tells her that she does not have to tell her everything about herself, but she does have to be honest with the information that she does divulge. He promises to do the same, establishing a level of trust between them. However, Jamie is also characterized by his inability to control his temper and his emotions, which results in combativeness.

Jamie is also marked by his sense of honor and kindness. In Chapter 6, Jamie takes a public flogging for Laoghaire despite having no connection to her. When his home Lallybroch is attacked, Jamie tries to save his sister from Randall. His inability to do so haunts him throughout the book. He also shows a fatherly nature toward young people. At Claire’s prompting, he frees a 12-year-old boy who is being publicly punished for petty theft. In Chapter 24, he patiently answers his young cousin Hamish’s questions about sex and teaches him to ride an adult horse to counteract the ridicule of his peers. He saves Claire from death and sexual violence again and again. Jamie willingly risks his life for those in need and for those he loves. He also displays selflessness when he leads Claire to the rocks and gives her the opportunity to go back to her time.

Throughout Outlander, Jamie undergoes several transformations. In the beginning of the novel, Jamie is characterized as somewhat immature—a stubborn and brash young man prone to fighting but with a heart of gold. Before meeting Claire, Jamie is also sexually inexperienced, admitting to her on their wedding day that he is a virgin. After having sex with Claire for the first time, he confesses to Claire that he thought people had sex back-to-back instead of face-to-face, similar to horses. Jamie is later defined by his unconsumable desire for Claire. “Does it stop?” he asks Claire, at the beginning of their marriage, “the wanting you” (463). He boasts an adventurous sexual appetite and unwavering devotion to Claire as well as kindness and strength. His dialogue to Claire also unfolds much of the theme of the connection between emotional intimacy and sexual desire. Throughout these nascent sexual experiences he also discovers his interest in submission and domination—that he at times takes pleasure inflicting sexual pain upon Claire. Jamie’s dialogue drives the motif of dominance and submission.

Jamie undergoes a change in his understanding of justice when he is forced to give up some of his patriarchal beliefs and customs in relationship to Claire. He expresses a sense of duty in punishing Claire for putting the MacKenzie men in danger. He also humorously and fondly looks back on the beatings he bore as a child at the hands of his father. However, his feelings about justice and corporal punishment change after he sees the cruelty with which local villager MacNab treats his small son Rabbie, who Jamie grants shelter from his father by giving him work as a Lallybroch stable boy. While Jamie believes his own father used corporal punishment as a form of justice, Jamie sees that MacNab uses corporal punishment as a form of cruelty. After Claire points out the patriarchy behind punishing his wife due to her status as property, Jamie agrees never to lay hands on Claire again

Jamie later goes through a transformation as he faces suicidal ideation after being raped and tortured by Captain Randall. Whereas in the previous sections of the novel Jamie has been defined by his physical strength and desire, overcoming the shame, humiliation, and trauma of rape tests Jamie’s mental fortitude as well as his ability to be vulnerable. Jamie is plagued by the fact that he was in part sexually aroused by Randall’s advances.

Captain Jonathan Randall, an English soldier, spy for the Jacobite cause, and a distant relative of Claire’s 20th century husband Frank, is the villain of Outlander. His first appearance in Outlander is an attempt to sexually harass Claire when she first arrives in the year 1743, introducing the theme of the threat of sexual violence. He continues to threaten Claire, Jamie, and other minor characters, such as Jamie’s sister Jenny, with sexual violence throughout the book. Randall is also marked by his uncanny physical similarity to Frank, which serves as a source of great emotional confusion for Claire when she faces interrogation and violence at the hands of Randall. Randall is known for being calculated and ruthless. Though heralded as a historical hero in the 20th century, in the reality of the 18th century Randall is spineless and threatening. Randall’s malicious nature calls into question the validity and import of family lineage.

Early in the novel Jamie reveals that the deep scars on his back are due to a brutal flogging from Randall, which establishes the two men’s position as rivals. Randall and Jamie’s relationship is complicated by Randall’s sexual desire for Jamie. Jamie reveals to Claire that Randall had once offered to forgo one of his floggings in exchange for sex, which Jamie refused, further angering Randall and leading him to beat Jamie almost to death. Jamie suspects that it was witnessing this near-death beating that caused Jamie’s father Brian’s heart attack, deepening Jamie’s vendetta against Randall. Jamie also claims that it was Randall’s sexual torture that drove Alexander, a young fellow Fort William prisoner, to hang himself. Jamie carries Alexander’s Bible with him in order to send back to Alexander’s mother when Jamie avenges Alexander.

In many ways, Randall serves as a foil to Jamie; He is murderous and cruel where Jamie is honorable and kind. He shows no allegiance to his country, opting to help the efforts to overthrow the British king, while Jamie is an ardent patriot for Scotland. While Jamie is ravenously virile, unable to contain his sexual desire for Claire, Randall goes limp in Claire’s presence and seems largely unable to keep an erection. However, the two men align in their sexual arousal in inflicting violence. But while Randall cannot sexually perform without violence, Jamie shows an ability to make love tenderly in addition to violently.

Claire also notices through her interactions with Randall that he is only sexually aroused by violence, introducing the motif of domination and submission. This is later confirmed by Jenny and finally spelled out by the grueling torture and rape that Jamie endures under Randall’s hands. Jamie recalls Randall’s level of manipulation, alternating between a loving and cruel touch to entice Jamie to submit further to Randall’s form of torture. From a historical standpoint, Randall ends the novel as a point of confusion for Claire. Claire wonders how it is possible that Randall dies unwed and childless in 1743 when Frank’s historical records showed that Randall was to die in 1745, having married and sired a child. Claire wonders if Randall’s early death means that Frank will not be born, throwing Claire into a moral quandary about her responsibilities as a time traveler.