Dragonfly in Amber

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2, Chapters 6-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-17

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6, Chapters 36-39

Part 6, Chapters 40-46

Part 7

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapters 12-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Pretenders”

Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary: “L’Hôpital Des Anges”

Content Warning: Part 2 Summary and Analysis sections contain references to abortion, which are discussed in the source text.

Jamie decides to allow Claire to volunteer at L’Hôpital des Anges so she does not have extra time to remove all her body hair; he’s uncomfortable with the thought of Claire without pubic hair. Claire diagnosis a sick woman with diabetes. The woman who runs the hospital, Mother Hildegarde, is impressed by Claire. Claire becomes a regular at the hospital, helping as much as she can, even becoming friendly with Mother Hildegarde’s infection sniffing dog.

Claire arrives home one afternoon to discover Jamie entertaining a young boy. He tells Claire a story of how he was chased through the docks by two sailors who intended to kill him. To escape, Jamie went into a brothel where he met the boy, Fergus. Jamie has hired Fergus as a pickpocket with the intention of having him steal correspondence from Charles Stuart’s home so he can monitor Charles’s progress on planning the Jacobite Uprising.

Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary: “Deceptions”

Louise is pregnant, but knows the child is not her husband’s. She is desperate to keep anyone from finding out and asks Claire for the recipe to make an abortifacient. Claire suggests that instead of taking the potion, she might seduce her husband and claim the child is his. Louise balks at the idea because it would mean cheating on Charles. Claire goes to Jamie to ask for his help, and he readily agrees to speak to Charles on Louise’s behalf. At the same time, Jamie has received the first letter Fergus has managed to steal. It is coded, so he cannot read it, but Claire makes a copy in the hopes that with more letters, he will be able to figure the code out.

Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary: “Meditations on the Flesh”

Claire helps Monsieur Forez set a man’s broken leg, fascinated by a technique he employs that numbs the nerve plexus in the man’s leg to make the repair easier. Afterward, Monsieur Forez offers to take Claire home because it has grown late. Fergus has been escorting Claire home each night and feels this change in plans is a betrayal of his pledge to Jamie. As a result, Jamie is placed in a position where he must give Fergus a beating in front of the other servants. Jamie is shaken by the experience and has a new appreciation for his own father.

Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary: “In Which Music Plays a Part”

Jamie tells Claire that he has figured out the code Charles and James use to correspond. He says that most of James’s letters are more concerned with Charles finding favor with King Louis. There is no indication that James wants to mount a rebellion in Scotland. Instead, James is trying to encourage King Louis to offer Charles a position as a General of France.

Jamie arrives at the hospital later that afternoon to ask Mother Hildegarde to look at some sheet music with lyrics in German taken from Charles’s home. Claire and Mother Hildegarde discover that the music uses the key to hide a message offering Charles a large sum of money to help with the Jacobite Uprising. When Claire shares this information with Jamie, they both conclude that Charles is working on his own to build the rebellion. Claire suggests the author of the message might be Silas Hawkins.

Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary: “The Nature of Sulfur”

A month passes. Jamie plays chess with Monsieur Duverney, the Minister of Finance, at Versailles. Jamie wins, and he and Claire are invited to spend the night. While sleeping, Claire has a nightmare about the baby. Jamie wakes her and she is in terrible pain. The doctor comes and says that it is not the baby, but perhaps a problem with her gall bladder or liver. Instead, Claire realizes that someone has slipped her cascara, Master Raymond’s non-lethal poison.

Claire goes to see Master Raymond to find out who he sold the cascara to. He tells her he sold one to the maid to Vicomtesse de Rambeau. The other was sold to a man he did not know, but Claire suspects it might have been a servant to the Comte St. Germain. Raymond takes her into a secret passage where he has a display of bones from multiple animals. Raymond gives Claire a white crystal that has been made into a necklace, and he says it will change color if exposed to poison.

Claire introduces Jamie to Raymond who tells Jamie that he has heard the name Fraser spoken in “a place where names are seldom named in blessing” (300). He warns they might both be in danger. Jamie decides to have Murtagh follow the Comte St. Germain to find out if he is the one trying to kill them.

Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary: “Possession”

Jamie begins going out many nights with Charles Stuart, coming home in the early hours of the morning. One morning, however, Claire wakes to discover Jamie hasn’t come home at all. At first, she assumes he has spent the night at Charles’s home, but begins to worry that he has been hurt by whoever has been making attempts on their lives. She sends Murtagh to look for him. Jamie comes home quite unceremoniously a short time later. He spent the night in a brothel with Charles and his friends but swears he didn’t do anything even though his body is covered in bites and scratches. Claire and Jamie fight. The following morning, Claire feels the baby move for the first time. She wants to share this news with Jamie but decides to keep it to herself for a while.

Part 2, Chapters 12-17 Analysis

Claire returns to her roots as a nurse by volunteering to work at L’Hôpital des Anges. The lack of medical knowledge among those of the 1740s becomes clear in these scenes, but there is also a surprising number of medical insights that show how medical knowledge developed despite social beliefs that hampered some progress. Claire is pregnant during this time, and the concern of high maternal death rates during this time is continually on the mind of the reader as they visit the limited medical facilities of this hospital, hinting at a time later in the novel when this will be an issue.

Jamie brings home a young boy, Fergus, to work as a pickpocket for him. There is an immediate sense of affection between Jamie and this young boy that parallels a father/son relationship. This is made even clearer when Fergus demands to be punished for allowing Claire to return home from the hospital with Monsieur Forez and Jamie feels a deep emotional reaction in the aftermath that makes him think of the frequent corporal punishments he received from his father as a child. Fergus’s connection to Jamie will continue to grow as the plot develops and will become a catalyst for a pivotal moment in Claire and Jamie’s relationship.

Claire becomes friendly with Charles’s mistress, Louise, and counsels her through the decision of whether she should carry his child to term. This sets up the possibility that Charles Stuart’s genetic lineage might become important later in the series. At the same time, Monsieur Forez is introduced as a bone setter, but will enter the novel later. The fact that Claire is escorted back and forth from the hospital is also mentioned in these chapters, laying the groundwork for the idea that traveling in the neighborhood near the hospital is a dangerous undertaking.

As Jamie continues to have Fergus steal papers from Charles’s house, he comes across a suspicious piece of music. In interpreting this item, Jamie invites Mother Hildegarde, the nun who runs the hospital, into the scheme he and Claire are running to stop the Jacobite Uprising. Mother Hildegarde expresses concern for Jamie and Claire’s safety that is underscored when someone attempts to poison Claire during a visit to Versailles. After investigating, Claire’s suspect is the Comte St. Germain, foreshadowing her growing suspicion of the man and her role in his ultimate demise. It is after Claire’s suspected poisoning that she receives a white crystal from Master Raymond that is meant to protect her from poison, but it becomes a symbol of protection when it keeps her from harm that has nothing to do with poison.

Claire’s relationship with Jamie hits a slight snag when she believes he cheated on her. Infidelity is a recurring issue in their marriage and will appear again as the novel continues. However, this moment is a misunderstanding, but it will lead to a reputation for Claire that will save her in a moment of peril.