“Reader, I Met Him”: First Encounters in Fiction
Near the end of Jane Eyre, the title character famously says, “Reader, I married him.” It is a wedding her readers have expected and waited for, yet it comes after a rather inauspicious first meeting.
Fiction is full of first meetings. While a relationship’s apex or culmination might often be most memorable to readers, the initial encounter is also of special interest and significance to the story. Papers for this panel will explore fictional (or nonfictional) first meetings or initial encounters. Presenters may discuss a first meeting in light of the dynamics of the relationship’s development and/or ending, or presenters may choose to do a close reading that does not take into account the relationship’s future.