Video narration
What happens when a static electric field meets the metal doorknob you're holding? Inside the knob, electrons are free to move through the metal. The external electric field pushes them, so they shift, gathering on one side and leaving the opposite side with a different charge. That rearrangement creates its own electric field, opposing the applied field inside the knob. But the electrons do not keep moving forever. They stop at electrostatic equilibrium, when the electric field inside the metal is zero. The electrons have not disappeared inside. Rather, their effect has cancelled the field there. Any excess charge is left on the surface, arranged according to the knob's shape. At the surface, the electric field points straight out. So, what does the field do to your metal doorknob? It makes its free electrons rearrange until the inside is shielded from a static electric field.