Monsters Are Due On Maple Street Analysis

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” is a screenplay by Rod Serling that was televised as part of the Twilight Zone television series, a popular series that began in 1959 and is still televised today. After reading and then watching the selection, I prefer the teleplay over the episode.

In both versions there are many differences and few similarities. Rod Serling, changed updates to relate time period to a modern theme. "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" 1960 version is black and white and the 2002 version is in color. The 1960 version is less violent how the 2002 version is very violent. The characters change for looking and dressing alike to look nothing alike in the 1960 episode everyone is white fancy as where the 2002 episode has people who don’t care who they look like and they don’t have the same skin color.

Imagine this – you feel so alone and scared so much so that you and your neighbors accuse, riot, and even murder each other. Well, this is exactly what happened in the teleplay “Monsters are due on Maple Street” originally broadcasted in 1960, written by Rod Serling. They were all afraid that aliens would terrorize and take them over. While in the 2003 version “Monsters are on Maple Street” they all finger point to the new neighbors who moved in the dark of the night. The fear of the unknown can cause people to turn on each other.

An obsession exists in the world today based solely upon the use of scapegoats. According to the dictionary, a scapegoat consists of a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place. Some of the most influential scapegoats consist of Jesus Christ taking suffering for the sins of civilization, the Jewish population being punished for the problems in Germany, and more recently the U.S. citizens who perished in 9/11 being punished for the sins of America. Scapegoats have come in many forms over time and have been very destructive. The usage of scapegoats in our society, such as in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, has proved to be damaging, and an end must be found in order to find peace.

During World War II, Hitler used his power to persuade the government to make him the chancellor, which gave him more control over Germany. This lets him manipulate the people so they would think that same way as he did. The people believed this because they did not understand what Hitler was going to do with the Jews, during this time they used the Jews as a scapegoat to blame for their problems. Many situations have a scapegoat that people need to blame to help them deal with their problems. In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller the town used witches as their scapegoat. In the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed the people in Tanzania used witchcraft as their scapegoat. Finally in the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government Makes Americans More Likely to Reach for a Gun the government is creating scapegoats out of the certain people and events. Some people need to find a scapegoat to blame for example, in The Crucible, the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed, and the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government makes Americans more likely to Reach for a Gun the people had to find a scapegoat for the problems that they faced.

Boom!! Pete’s dead. Charlie shot Pete. Pete was walking around seeing if everybody's power is off. Pete was walking In the shadow charlie got scared he thought Pete was a alien. This story is not realistic because Charlie shot Pete he said he thought he was a alien. Less Goodman’s car stared out of nowhere. A meteor flew overhead they thought it was a spaceship.

Suspicion is a demonstration of a weapon of humanity and shows how humans react when they aren’t sure about something and want to get the answer. One way that it shows how the crowd starts to suspect something is when Goodman’s car all of a sudden starts up out of nowhere. The crowd starts to grow suspicious as they realize that Goodman's car has started all on it's own and none of their electronic devices are working, (Serling, pg. 7). The crowd is surprised by how Goodman's car is starting up when none of their appliances are working. They start getting suspicious that he could possibly be the alien because he had gotten his car to start working when his car is the only object that is working on Maple Street. But this

When we are younger we used to get our brother or sister and pick on another sibling. When mom or dad comes to yell at the person who started it we tend to pin it on someone else or you are the person who gets left with all the punishment. At one point in our lives we were blamed for something we didn't do or we were the person that pushed it onto someone else. Arthur Miller expresses a lot of scapegoating or being the scapegoat in The Crucible.

What if someone you knew was not who they were? What if they were aliens or terrorists? That’s what happens in the 1960 and the 2003 version of Rod Serling’5s teleplay. In the 1960 version the neighbors are accusing each other of being aliens and taking away each other’s power from their houses and cars. While in the 2003 version they think terrorists are doing this from the recent 9/11. This shows that fear of the unknown can cause people to turn on each other.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you,” profoundly stated by Friedrich Nietzsche (goodreads.com). Friedrich Nietzsche’s lecture is portrayed to be true in The Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone is a television series from the 1960s which are all short dark stories that in the end, shed light on the flaws of humanity. The short story, “Monsters are Due on Maple Street” by Rod Serling, is a science fiction story that shows prejudice and thoughts as weapons of humanity. Prejudice and thoughts are meant to destroy humans. Many signs of prejudice, are shown to destroy the tiny little subdivision, of Maple Street.

In the teleplay “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” by Rod Serling, aliens shut down the power and create chaos on Maple Street. Lights go off in people’s houses and neighbors no longer trust each other. Through the action, the author conveys fear and suspicion.

Have you ever heard of aliens landing on Earth and turning all the power off on one street? Well on “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” they do. It all starts one day when everybody was having a good time outside doing yard work and playing. Then, out of nowhere a HUGE meteor passes overhead. After that all the power goes out even the cars and radios. A fourteen year old boy, Tommy, says that the meteor was a alien space ship, and that there are four aliens among them that look just like humans. After a few hours everybody starts accusing each other, fighting, and shooting each other. Then we (the readers) find out that it was aliens all along, but they never got off the spaceship. They just turned

Sometimes people get blamed for wrongdoings that they did not participate in. This was shown in Salem, Massachusetts, during the salem witch trials in the play The Crucible. The play was based in 1692, when a community of Puritans started accusing each other of of being witches and wizards. Innocent people that did not practice witchcraft were getting hanged and accused of being witches. Scapegoats have also been used in modern day with McCarthyism, which was a campaign against communist. Many people were blacklisted and lost their jobs even though many of these people did not belong to the communist party. This took place in 1950-1954 carried out by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Using scapegoats blames innocent people for wrongdoings, and accuses people of wrong doings.

The act of blaming others for problems is a common phenomena that occurs not only in our society, but also in literature. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl Prynne represents the scapegoat. Throughout the novel, the townspeople put the blame of Hester Prynne 's sin on Pearl and Hester grows as a person. Pearl gives Hester a daily reminder of her sin and Hester grows to becomes a happier, better person in response. In addition, another example of a scapegoat is Leonce Pontellier and the children, from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Edna Pontellier blames her husband and children for holding her back from reaching happiness and independence. All things considered, the

In the drama, ¨The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street¨ by Rod Serling, the plot is advanced by the importance of the events and characters’ actions by giving it interest and dimension. Tommy tells everyone about the monsters/aliens, but nobody believes him;¨They don't want us to leave.That's why they shut everything off,¨Tommy explains about the aliens, but no one believed him but soon after, it sparked the cause of the weird things happening.Charlie killed Pete Van Horn,¨You killed him, Charlie. You shot him dead!¨Charlie grabbed the gun and shot it at a dark figure that turned out to be Pete Van Horn, after that they begin to suspect Charlie is the monster. They all blame each other more intensely,¨I tell you, it's the kid.¨As the stress