Outlander Book Club: Book 1, Chapter 32 breakdown

Any foreshadowing within the Outlander chapter

While most of the chapter is focused on Jenny giving birth, there are a couple of times I think about the storylines to come. The first involves Claire and pregnancy.

Jamie is sure she’s barren due to what Geillis said, but it’s likely at this point that she’s pregnant. She finds out after rescuing Jamie from Wentworth that she’s pregnant. It’s just one of those things that took a little time. I do wonder if the stress of the way Claire and Jamie were living and Claire’s need to get back to the stones made it harder to conceive.

Yet, Claire’s pregnancy isn’t a healthy one. She loses Faith and when it comes to Brianna’s birth, it’s all done with modern medicine. The thoughts of the sterile rooms could be foreshadowing of how Claire is actually going to give birth to one of her daughters.

At one point, Jenny also jokes that there are few babies born in July because the men are too tired to do anything in November. It’s hard work plowing the fields for harvest, but it’s foreshadowing that Jamie is different to the others and Claire is now pregnant.

I also spot some foreshadowing at the start of the chapter. Jamie makes it clear that they need to leave soon. The English is there. While the English aren’t the ones who come for Jamie, the Frasers are in danger. And the birth of Maggie leads to Jamie’s capture. They stay beyond the time Jamie says they should leave.

If Jenny hadn’t given birth, would the two have left sooner? Would that have prevented everything from happening or would they have run across the Watch elsewhere since MacNab had already sown those seeds?