Claire Fraser

Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser is a nurse, later a doctor, and a time-traveler who has lived both in the 20th century and the 18th century. While on a second honeymoon in Scotland with her husband, Frank Randall, Claire inadvertently travels two hundred years into the past, where she meets and eventually marries Jamie Fraser. As the primary (and sole first-person) narrator of the Outlander novels, Claire is compassionate but medically ruthless, with a quick tongue that tends to get her into trouble.
== Personal History ==
Claire Beauchamp was born to Julia and Henry Beauchamp on October 20, 1918. She was baptized as a Catholic. Her parents died in a car accident when she was only five, and Claire was adopted by her uncle, Quentin Lambert Beauchamp, an archaeologist and historian whose work took him all over the world. He attempted to enroll her at an English boarding school, but she stubbornly refused to attend.
Claire consequently spent her childhood traveling the world with her uncle while he worked, becoming accustomed to fairly primitive conditions. Over the years, Claire recalls various places she had lived, including South America, Persia and Egypt. She later claims that her first kiss was at the age of eight, in Egypt with the dragoman's nine-year-old son.
Claire met Frank Randall, a historian, when he came to consult her uncle about his work. They were married in 1937, and spent a brief two-day honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands. During the early years of their marriage, Claire continued her nomadic life with Frank, who was junior faculty at the time. They lived in a succession of hired flats until the outbreak of World War II in Europe, at which point both Claire and Frank committed themselves to the war effort – Frank as an officer with MI6 and Claire as a combat nurse. They each served for the duration of the war, and thus spent very little time together during those years.
Claire began her nurses training at Pembroke Hospital, and by 1943 she was a senior nurse, supervising junior nurses and orderlies. She was later stationed at Caen and a field hospital in Amiens, France. Claire recalls that the field hospital had been shelled three times while she was there, and her experience of treating the wounded men stays with her, even many years later. She returned to Pembroke Hospital at the end of the war.
Once the war was over, Claire and Frank reunited and decided to go on a second honeymoon in Scotland to reestablish their marriage in 1945. They stayed at Mrs. Baird's bed-and-breakfast in Inverness, a city in the Scottish Highlands situated near an ancient stone circle called Craigh na Dun.
== Personality ==
By any standard, Claire is a woman ahead of her own time in 1945, and an outright anomaly in the 18th century. Her unusual upbringing, together with her six years as an army combat nurse, shaped Claire into a thoroughly independent woman undaunted by rough living conditions and physical danger. She is an eminently sensible person, though her considerable personal freedom from a young age shows through in her stubborn aversion to taking orders without questioning them. When it comes to practicing medicine, Claire takes charge and keeps a cool head in dire situations. In the 20th century, she stands out as a woman in medical school, and in the 18th she draws the ire of fellow surgeons, an exclusively male profession at the time.
== Appearance ==
Claire's defining physical features include her extremely curly hair and golden-colored eyes. Her hair, when unfettered by pins or ribbons, is wildly large and curly, and frequently breaks free of its bonds when she is agitated or engaged in physical activity. At the beginning of the series, she observes that her hair is light brown, though later in life it takes on lighter streaks of gold and silver. By her early sixties, Claire has a broad streak of white hair at her temple.
Her eyes are variously described as amber, golden, golden-brown, smoky topaz, the color of well-aged sherry or whisky, and compared to those of a hawk or leopard. Claire's Uncle Lamb told her that her mother's eyes had been the same color. She has a naturally pale complexion, often described as so white as to be translucent, though her skin tans to a soft light brown after long periods of time spent outdoors. She has an average modern height at five feet, six inches, though she is taller than most women (and not a few men) of the 18th century.
== Name ==
== Trivia ==
Category:Characters
Category:Main characters
Category:18th century characters
Category:20th century characters
Category:Time Travelers
Category:Fraser Clan
Category:Beauchamp Family
Category:Characters in Season 1
Category:Characters in Season 2
Category:Characters in Season 3
Category:Characters in Season 4
Category:Characters in Season 5
Category:Characters in Season 6
Category:Characters in Season 7