A few years ago, I wrote an essay here on Helen Phillips’ short story The Knowers and how, among other things, it advocates for soaking in the small joys of life despite the knowledge of our impermanence on earth.
The Knowers is set in an alternate reality where sophisticated technology can tell people their date of death if they choose to know. It’s the first story in Philip’s 2016 speculative fiction and collection of 18 short stories ‘Some Possible Solutions’.
I received a lot of questions concerning the story’s literary analysis, some which I answered in the comments. This is a longer version with answers to questions from that blog and some I found throughout the internet.
1. What is the short story The Knowers by Helen Phillips about?
The Knowers by Helen Phillips is a futuristic short story set in a world where people can learn their date of death, minus the circumstances, at a fee. The plot follows a couple where the woman chooses to know her date of death while the man doesn’t, and how this affects different aspects of their individual and collective lives as a couple who goes on to marry and have children.
2. What is the meaning of the “Knowers” in the story?
“The Knowers” in Phillip’s short story are citizens who choose to learn their date of death. The process involves keying in their social security numbers and receiving a paper with a date that the person will die. Ellie, the wife, is a Knower, while her husband Tem is not.
3. What is the contemporary issue explored in the story?
The contemporary issue Helen Phillips explores in The Knowers is technology and how it can shape our lives. In the story, advanced technology can tell a person’s date of death and we see how such information affects a couple, despite one of them choosing not to know their date.
4. Who is the protagonist in The Knowers by Helen Phillips?
The protagonist character and the narrator in this short story is Ellie. The plot follows her choice to know her date of death and how this information affects her life and those of her loved ones.
5. What’s the central idea in the short story The Knowers by Helen Phillips?
The central idea in The Knowers by Helen Phillips is implied and explores how knowing about our deaths, specifically the date it will occur, can shape our lives. Through a well-founded and supported premise, the story argues that learning our date of death can be both enriching and destructive to our lives and those around us.
6. What is the setting in The Knowers short story?
The Knowers is set in a futuristic or alternate country where they’ve mastered technology that can tell their citizen’s date of death at a fee.
7. If you were Tem, how would you face each day as you await for April 17, 2043 to come?
Tem doesn’t know the exact year of Ellie’s death, yet he lives in fear and a lot of anxiety every 17th of April, which is only human nature. But he also lives his life like any other, going “blithely along, indulging … petty concerns, lacking perspective,” and frequently not thinking about his mortality like Ellie does. If I were Tem, I think I would face each day with a little bit more positivity knowing that I have the gift of spending time together with my wife, for as long as we have.
8. What is the conflict in the story?
The main conflict in The Knowers by Helen Phillips is person vs. technology. This type of conflict explores the dangers that arise when human beings advance technology beyond its intended use. The story shows how the lives of one couple is affected both positively and negatively by such critical knowledge made available by technology.
Person vs. technology often breeds to internal conflict of person vs. self, as the character reflects on their life and what it means to be human. This results in them living a conscious life. Similarly, Ellie lives a super aware life while her husband goes on to live incognizant of their mortality.
“And so in many ways I could live a life like any other. Like Tem’s… Yet it would be a lie if I said a single day passed without me thinking about April 17, 2043”.
How we choose to interact with technology has the power to shape the rest of our lives.
9. Find an example of simile or metaphor in the story
Similes draw a comparison between two things using ‘like’ or ‘as’, while metaphors compare two unrelated things or scenarios by stating that one is like the other. Both of these create vivid imagery in a reader’s mind that helps visualize and advance critical parts of a story such as character and setting description.
An example of a simile in The Knowers by Helen Phillips is when Ellie describes her son’s newborn: “our first grandchild, bright as a brand-new penny.”
Examples of metaphors in the story include: “I felt like a newborn person” and “April 17, 2043: a tattoo inside my brain”.
10. Find an example of alliteration in the story
Alliteration occurs when two or more successive words start with the same sound. This creates an appealing and memorable rhythm that grasps a reader’s attention.
Examples of alliteration in the short story The Knowers by Helen Phillips include:
- “our son’s six-month-old”
- “bright as a brand-new penny”
- “My foot fell asleep”
- “I quietly quit my job”
- “I gave a short sharp laugh”
11. Who are the characters in The Knowers by Helen Phillips?
There are only two characters in The Knowers by Helen Phillips:The married couple Ellie and Tem.
Ellie is Tem’s wife and together they have three children and a few grandkids. She’s the main character, the narrator, protagonist, and one of the Knowers. Ellie is curious by nature, which is why she’s a knower: “If only I could have known it was possible to know and still have been fine with ignorance.” She’s grateful for the risks that this knowledge allows her to take in life, but regrets learning about it.
Tem is not a knower. Despite feeling angry at his wife’s choice to know, he remains a kind, loving, and supportive husband to Ellie until their last moments together. However, Tem still lives in fear and anxiety every 17th of April and through his character, we see how individual choices affect other people.
12. What are the main themes in The Knowers by Helen Phillips short story?
Some of the themes that Phillips explores in The Knowers are:
- Death and mortality: Human beings’ impermanence on Earth can bring about feelings of helplessness. In a bid to alleviate this and feel some sense of control, we develop scientific innovations like anti aging solutions and in this story, the means to learn our date of death. This story explores how we view and think about death and how learning such important information about our deaths can impact or change the course of our lives.
- Marital love: The Knowers looks at how Ellie’s choice to know her date of death enriches or strains different aspects of her life, including marriage. Ultimately, Ellie admits that she’s been lucky with Tem because while he isn’t happy about Ellie knowing, he supports her every April 17th and not once does he punish her for choosing to know. The story perfectly examines the importance of individuality in relationships and marriages.
- Human agency: Knowing one’s date of death is not a small feat. The story explores human freewill to make a choice even in such extreme cases such as knowing the date of death. Ellie’s choice to know and her husband’s content without knowing further paints the availability of choice.
- Technology: The Knowers by Helen Phillips also briefly touches on the role and effects of technology on human beings. Our choices on how we interact with technology has the power to shape the rest of our lives.
13. What did you like about the short story The Knowers by Helen Phillips?
One of the many things I liked about Helen Phillips’ short story The Knowers is the great question it poses: Given the chance, would you choose to know the exact date of your death, minus its circumstances?
The other is how she applies different narrative techniques to achieve various storytelling effects. The literary devices I loved include:
- Opening line: “There are those who wish to know, and there are those who don’t wish to know.” A great opening line brings clarity about some aspect of the plot to set a scene, while eliciting curiosity at the same time. This opening line does exactly that by narrating that there’s something to be known and there are people who choose to know while others choose not to. However, it doesn’t reveal what’s being known, which evokes curiosity so that the reader is interested enough to continue reading.
- Exposition: Exposition is how the author introduces the story at the beginning by providing context or a background story. Readers do not learn what the “knowing” entails until the third or fourth paragraph. This slow-paced exposition and teasing before revealing such critical information further supports the strong opening line in evoking interest and curiosity from the reader.
- Repetition: Phillips repeats certain words in several instances throughout the story, which reinforces some themes, adds depth to the scenes, and influences the mood within a scene. Examples of repetition in The Knowers include: “I pretended and pretended; it felt nice to pretend”, “The ache was vast, vast.”, “but I tell you that for me it has been rich, layered and rich.”, “so literally, so very literally”.
- Point of view: The first-person point of view used in the story allows readers to explore Ellie’s (the narrator) thoughts and the plot more intimately to understand the full impact of knowing.
- Cliffhanger ending: Phillips ends the story without revealing whether Ellie dies on April 17th, 2043 as the machine predicted, whether Tem dies too, and the circumstances of her death This leaves the reader with numerous questions but one clear answer; the bigger questions in life, such as death, don’t have a definitive answer or solution and it’s a waste of time to look for such conclusions.
If you have more questions on The Knowers by Helen Phillips literary analysis, let me know in the comments!
