Arshya Ahmed

ENG237H5S

February 2, 2024

Assignment 1

Knock, Horror Story or Rom Com

Fredric Brown’s short story Knock is a science fiction story that establishes tension, mystery, as

well as pioneering a new and ambitious form of storytelling in only two sentences. This

nightmare scenario is presented to the reader, and they are forced to continue reading and

theorize on the complex realities of a fantasy world. The integration of scientific reasoning into

fictional stories for dramatic purposes allows an increase in stakes and the readers attentive

value, creating a genre that cannot be questioned, but instead dissected within a completely

fictional canonized lore that readers follow and discuss. An interesting facet of science fiction is

the eerily similar interests and story beats that it shares with romantic comedies in the sense that

they both follow one person who has many weird things happen to that have incredibly slight

chances of ever happening in real life. Another similarity is the varying perspectives that exist.

From Walter’s POV the end of Knock could be an interesting and fun story of saving humanity

and falling in love along the way, whereas Grace could be living her worst nightmare, trapped

with an unfamiliar man who has already decided how he wants to use her body. There is nobody

to help her, she is completely alone, and may not be as secure in her isolation as Walter is. In a

romantic comedy, the gestures and actions of the leads are questionable outside of the

perspective of the person experiencing them with preconceived notions of what the actions will

result, creating a strange alternate reality where these actions and events are okay if it is fictional.

1
This essay will discuss the warped meaning of what it is to be human and how Knock subverts

these expectations with its portrayal of gender issues in the horror science fiction genre.

As previously stated, there is an eerie similarity between events that take place in romantic

comedies and in the science fiction story Knock as well as other stories in the genre. This seems

to have been an intentional choice to draw parallels between the way that women's stories have

often been written to use the women and their experiences as plot devices rather than stories to

be related, shared, and given respect as separate human experiences. Grace in the story has the

same amount of functionality as the door that is knocked on. The door keeps the most important

job in the story allowing for all the developments and plot twists that take place and allow for the

story to be the engaging masterpiece it is, but the functionality of it is an action that is performed

on it without any will of its own. Grace acts the same with her “use” being a function of her body

that she has basically no control over. Grace has no character, Walter on the other hand, well

Walter states in the start of the story that “His life had been his books, the ones he read and the

ones he wrote. Now there wasn't any point in writing books, but he had the rest of his life to

spend reading them” (Brown, 2001), where he seems to indicate that it would not bother him to

be alone for the rest of his life. But Walter craves attention, hearing that knock that would allow

some conversation or intellectual appraisal. It does not matter to him who or what is enabling his

superiority complex and continue to feel like the smartest man on Earth and someone to

reinforce it. The Zan are emotionless and provided little satisfaction in outsmarting, but they are

the beings that were able to end humanity in fell swoop. Grace, however, is a perfect subject for

Walter to lay out his academic accolades and it makes no difference that it is Grace or someone

else. "It might work, Martha," (Brown, 2001). Walter refers to Grace as Martha, a person who

has been dead for two years, despite knowing her name. This could indicate that he sees her as an

identical usage as Martha, who nagged him and foiled his own “easygoing and informal” self. As

2
soon as she was introduced, he placed her in the same categorical recollection as his wife, a

woman he has just met. The crux of the issue is that Walter is the only human. Grace is a door,

and the aliens, the Zan, have more of an identity than Grace as a part of the story acting as the

antagonists to prop up the “heroic actions” of the protagonist.

With the understanding that Brown has created a story with one constructed person, this may

make it seem like a badly written story, but this is not the case. The way humor, irony and

biblical references are crafted into the narrative of the story, it has created a larger conversation

about the nature of portraying female characters especially in bible and religious texts which

have often denigrated the role of a woman not as a person, but as a mother, not a person, but a

tool. Brown is pointing to that cliche and showing the horrifying reality. This has inadvertently

exposed the romanticization of Hollywood and how it glorifies toxic relationships with flatly

written women and dangerous men with stalker like tendencies and rebrands them as being

quirky and silly. Because of the readers preconceived notion of a romance unfolding, they ignore

the glaring red flags of the actual situation, but placing a narrative of strangers meeting as

destiny, she looks just like his deceased wife, in a setting that is uncomfortable, scary, and

leaving it on a cliffhanger... Browns’ work helps the reader see the classic white male savior

complex in action as he strips the only other person in the short story of any kind of humanity in

only one short meeting, resulting trapped.