Outlander Book Club: Book 1, Chapter 33 breakdown

Foreshadowing within the Outlander chapter

There isn’t much in the way of traditional foreshadowing, but there are moments that set us up for the next stage of the story. It’s all about Jamie being on the run.

By Jamie escaping from The Watch, he forces Claire and Murtagh to go on the search for him. It leads to him being picked up by dragoons and taken to Wentworth Prison. Had Jamie trusted that Claire and Jenny would get to him, this could have all been avoided. But of course, Jamie has no idea what his family is going to do and will always look out for himself when trapped.

However, there are some hints of things to come. In a sense of traditional foreshadowing, I do wonder if the priest hole is just that. We know that Jamie turns to Jenny and Ian for protection after Culloden.

Something I find interesting is that Claire doesn’t even think of herself in the future. It’s like she doesn’t even know if she’ll be around. Instead, she focuses on Jamie and that he might need somewhere to hide if he ends up on the wrong side of the war. We get this foreshadowing that it’s going to happen—Jamie can’t escape his fate.

But for the most part, I find this chapter just a stepping stone into the things that are to come.