Outlander Book Club: Book 1, Chapter 7 breakdown

Purely looking at the chapter

Let’s start with just a look at the chapter. There are two main threads in the story here.

The first is that Claire is stuck in the past. It doesn’t look like Colum has plans to allow Claire to leave. Of course, Claire hasn’t tried to arrange passage to Inverness at this point in the books unlike the show, but she does intend to get back home still.

Colum decides to find a way for her to be useful in the castle. That means working as Leoch’s healer. It’s not like there isn’t a space for her. She has access to Davie Beaton’s surgery. And this is when the “Beaton” mentioned from Mrs. Fitz makes sense to Claire. The term “Beaton” wasn’t a name of a role but the name of a clan.

I actually smiled the first time I heard the name Beaton on the show. I know a Beaton who is an optometrist. Just a little life anecdote.

What I’m always surprised about is that Dougal had a hand in Claire becoming the healer for the castle. He was the one that shared her skills in the field with Colum, which gave Colum the push he needed to give Claire this job.

Why would Dougal want to find a way to keep Claire around instead of making her life miserable? Or does he think that Claire will be miserable stuck in the surgery? Maybe it’s a case of keeping enemies closer than friends.

While Claire waits for the surgery to be cleaned out by a couple of girls Mrs. Fitz sends down, Claire heads out to tend to Jamie’s shoulder. That’s when we get to meet Old Alec and while he thinks Claire is sleeping, Alec talks to Jamie about his options at the Gathering. It’s the first we hear of a Gathering coming up, but it also gives us a little more about Jamie. Somehow he’s related to the MacKenzies—and we get that knowledge that it’s through his mother’s side.

Jamie is clearly torn about his options. That leads us to some of the foreshadowing in the chapter.

There is also a small section of Claire getting to think carefully about the trip through the stones. She remembers small bits about the trip through, the sounds that she heard. She starts to wonder how she ended up in this time. It’s something we’ve all always wondered, right? Did her knowledge of Black Jack Randall pull her there or was it Jamie?