Monsters Are Due On Maple Street Theme

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.

The series Twilight Zone is a show that combines science fiction with society. Every episode ends with a shocking, unexpected twist. “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” is an episode that informs society about the fear of prejudice and hysteria. In this episode, a loud shadow in the sky passes through Maple Street. The shadow is actually a meteor. Unexpected and strange things start to happen like the electricity and cars turning off. The people who live on Maple become very curious on what the meteor has done to the neighbors living on the street. A young boy named Tommy tells the adults that everything weird happening is because of the aliens from outer space, which he read about in a comic book. First the

“Sheer mayhem breaks out, neighbor battling neighbor, grabbing for rifles, bricks, even the hammer from Pete Van Horn’s body,” (Serling, page 15). This describes the final scene of a provocative short story in The Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone is a televised show set in the 1960s with short episodes in no specific order. These stories all have the darkest of themes to share about humanity’s true nature. In the short story, “Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” by Rod Serling, the author contributes to the theme that prejudice and scapegoating are weapons of humanity. When the idea of prejudice first kicks in, Maple Street gets a little taste of madness.

Wow! One of the best stories ever created! The story is called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street by Rod Serling. What he was trying to say in the story is humans have flaws. The two flaws were prejudice and suspicion that was in the story. The flaws that were prejudice and suspicion are constantly demonstrated throughout the story. The other types of flaws that can be found are scapegoat, attitudes, and there are weapons that are simply thoughts . . . to be found only in the minds of people, but it was harder to find so prejudice and suspicion are the easiest for some people.

In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, it carries a very common theme; fear is destructive and can provoke the most daunting actions. Okonkwo and his village went through a bunch of disasters and events because they feared a lot of stuff. Okonkwo was driven to madness by fear and most of his actions were driven by fear.

Asma states, "Monsters can stand as symbols of human vulnerability and crisis, and as such they play imaginative foils for thinking about our own responses to menace.” This means that human weaknesses and fears are represented through monstrous figures, and these fictional situations provide perspective into how we react in fearful environments. In our current society we fear many things, including but not limited to failed or corrupt governmental systems, the afterlife, the unknown, and captivity, which makes this claim valid. Although we may not realize it, these fears are embodied by the horror monsters we see in popular culture. Society shares common fears, and often times the most prevailing fear is reflected in the most popular characters at any given time. Monsters are the fictional representations of society’s dark subconscious, exploring not only why the author’s statement is accurate but what we actually fear.

In conclusion, fear of the unrecognized may change people to suspect and turn on one another. Because the power went out and Tommy’s alien theory, there was a lot of confusion of aliens that were attacking. During the power outage, there was a suspect of terrorists because Philips theory. Different people who show idiosyncrasy were used as a scapegoat. Without information about others, people in strange situations tend to turn on each other. The real monsters on Maple Street weren’t the aliens, it was the people turning on each

Charlie pulls the trigger and shoots the monster. As the group approaches the monster, the find out that it’s Pete Van Horn… and he’s dead. It “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”, everything stops working and turns off. The people blame aliens and all turn against one another. The plot is not realistic in “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” because the car started by itself, the people blamed the power outage on aliens, and Charlie shoots Pete because he believes he’s a monster.

The more we begin to understand a monstrosity, the less we fear the monster itself, however, we fear the actions of the creature itself. Perhaps it is this fear that draws us closer to the unknown and the monsters thrive upon this fear we have. Asma discusses how this fear allows for individuals to play out scenarios in their minds; we then use the events to ultimately ask ourselves, “what will I do in a situation like that (Asma)?” Dating back to the early days of Christ in a biblical era, we see monsters have always been on the rise.

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.

One thing that people do when they do not know a certain objective is that they might start to get enraged or frightened and they can start to turn very violent. The show called The Twilight Zone, is a series of short stories that follow different groups of people that face different problems. They all come back to the main theme that humans are really monsters. In the short story, Monsters are Due on Maple Street by Rod Serling a group of people soon find out that the power is cut and they are suspicious that an alien is behind this. It shows two weapons of humanity which are suspicion and scapegoating. There are some ways that suspicion led the humans to turn on each other and how it is shown to go against humans.

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.

One way authors plant fear in your brain is by transforming something we already know and love into something frightening. One example of this is in the short story “Windigo” by Louise Erdrich. Over the course of the story, the windigo takes an innocent little kid and turns them into a monster. The author introduces an inculpable child, even calling them “little one”. She then takes the kid and transforms them into a monster, a windigo. Following that, she even goes so far as to bring the child home. Home. As a monster. To haunt her own village. It says, “...I carried you home,” and that is when the fear she planted at the beginning really starts to take root. This transformation is a great illustration of an author transforming something you know and love, in

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