The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street By Rod Serling

In the “Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” by Rod Serling, there are distinct ways events and characters in the story make the plot successful. One example of this is when one of the characters named Tommy said “They don’t want us to leave. That’s why they shut everything off...landing from outer space.” In this case, this quote indicates that Tommy feels as if monsters from outer space are controlling the electricity on the street. Similarly, the plot further develops when Les Goodman’s car starts on its own, “The car idles roughly, smoke coming from the exhaust, the frame shaking gently.” Consequently, this is crucial because it shows that this supposed power outage is not an ordinary occurrence. Finally, near the end of the play, the

In this scene, the power fails. Not only that, but all the technology is being faulty, even the portable. This causes suspicion amongst the people of Maple Street. "'It isn't just a power failure, Charlie. If it were, we'd still be able to get a broadcast on the portable.'" (Serling, pg.#3). Before this statement was made, the fact that the power was off was unsettling, however, people were still thinking straight and weren't going to lose their head over it. Once the statement was made, people started to become very suspicious about what was happening because certain events didn't add up. Their suspicion quickly lead to mob mentality. As soon as they were faced with something unexplainable, they became a mob. They stopped thinking clearly out of desperation of wanting a logical answer. The problem quickly escalated to the point when Charlie shoots and kills his own neighbor, Pete Van Horn. With the people of Maple Street now controlled by mob mentality, they chose to scapegoat Charlie next. " You were so quick to kill, Charlie, and so quick to tell us who we had to look out for," (Serling, pg.#13). After Charlie shoots Pete, the citizens of Maple Street turn on him and become suspicious. There suspicion of Charlie leads to Charlie's scapegoating of Tommy. This shows how when humans are faced with blame they inevitably blame another, putting each other in danger and therefore demolishing neighborly bonds

Charlie deceives Will about his true identity and portrays himself as the character of Titus, a crazy man roaming the grain elevators of Thunder Bay. He never tells Will that he is his biological uncle, the brother of his mother, until it is later discovered nearing the end of the book. After Charlie’s lies are uncovered, it leads to another life long lie he has been keeping from his family. He was never killed, his best friend, Whalen was and he throw his lifeless body into the river. Charlie’s deceitfulness was to protect himself against the Butler and to cover up his deceitful lies from the past. Charlie not directly punished for his actions the day Whalen died, but his experiences working under the Butler actually shaped him to be a better person because it showed him the karma that come with deceitful decisions, especially regarding those that cared about him the most.

Rod Serling’s message to the readers of “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” is don’t accuse others without reasonable evidence. The theme begins to appear in the story when there was a loud crashing sound and a flash of light that caused all phones, cars, and power to go out. Everyone starts to accuse Les Goodman because his car started by itself when no one else’s did. In the text it says, “So I've got a car that starts by itself - well that's a freak thing, I admit it. But does that make me some kind of criminal or something?” This shows that when Les’s car started all by itself and he was blamed even though he had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t quality evidence because he wasn’t near the car when it started but people accused him for

Well some of us won't!” This shows that Charlie was accusing Steve because Steve didn’t even take action, and Charlie at least tried to protect and save everyone from the “monster”. They wouldn’t have reacted that way if they weren’t so afraid. and it was just an accident and Charlie was just protecting people around him. Later in the story, Lese’s car started turning on, but he was acting like he had NO IDEA why the group of people had come over to his house. They came because they were very sucpicious of him when 1st. His car turned on, and 2nd why he didn’t even come outside to see when this big space ship was flying over all the houses on Maple St. And that’s why they were so suspicious of Lese. In the text Lese said, “You were so quick to kill, Charlie, and you were so quick to tell us who we had to be careful of.” Though Lese was so scared because He thought he was getting blamed by Charlie, and then he started blaming Charlie for everything even though Lese knew most of what was going on. In conclusion, everyone should know that, you do not blame anyone for at least trying to protect you, and accusing you because you are afraid and having a reaction. I think the author included this theme in their text because, they want people to know not to judge/accuse people of what they do on

In “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” by Rod Serling the characters were important to advance the plot in many ways, like making it more of a mystery . The text states that most of the people on Maple Street saw something in the sky kind of like a meteor, Steve says “What was that? A meteor?” After reading the text you can concluded that this all put them in a subspecies mood, and then everything stopped working. According to the writer Tommy states “they sent four people a mother and a father with two kids who looked just like humans… but they weren't” When Tommy explained what was going on the all started to panic and was confused at the same time which lead them to point fingers at each other. According to the writer the women states

People treat charly disrespectfully because of his disability and they get away with it because charly does not understand what they mean by you pulled a charly gordon. When charlie gets smarter he begins to understand what's going on and what it means. Charlie got mad at them and himself because of this. He understands why he is like this and he rebels against it

Charlie is not at fault for his alienation as shown in section one multiple times like when Michael committed suicide and this leads to a mental breakdown even though it doesn’t seem so. He then starts to think it might have been his fault and it wasn’t at

Initially, Carlos (aka Charlie) was court ordered for treatment to explore his issues with substance abuse, when he was arrested for driving while intoxicated. During subsequent sessions, Charlie spoke of his early childhood struggles with being accepted by his family and his rebellious behaviors. Currently, Charlie still explores his issues with his self-esteem while he blames others for the way he feels about himself. However, Charlie had expressed feelings of anger towards those around him including his girlfriends, ex-wives, manager, directors, and co-workers proclaiming them all as losers and himself as a “Winner!” He has commented to reporters that he has no anger issues and it is everyone else’s problem with the way he acts not his,

Proof of this is when Charlie’s family found out about his sister getting abused. They went to the extent of confronting the boy and his family to tell him to stay away from their daughter. All this proves that what is

I believe if he weren’t sympathetic to Marion and Lincoln that he would have just marched in and claim his rights to Honoria as his child. Charlie would not ask to take her and be open to their retaliation. I do think Charlie is a victim. I believe he is a victim of circumstance and alcoholism.

Out of all of the monsters that go bump in the night, shapeshifters are among the most terrifying, not because of how “scary” they are, but because of what they represent. The true definition of a shapeshifter is one that is still widely disputed because there are several different stories of shapeshifters and other monsters or creatures that possess the abilities of a shapeshifter. Many interpretations of shapeshifters allow for the human characteristics instilled in shapeshifters, one of the main characteristics depicted is distrustfulness of others, especially the shapeshifters shown in Eric Kripke’s television show, Supernatural. Shapeshifters are representations of our innate human characteristics because they are a personification of the distrustfulness that humans have towards one another. The shapeshifters that appear on this show are able to transform into whatever human form that they choose in order to enter their victim’s homes and brutally murder their loved ones. This goes to show that even the people that are supposed to be the most trustworthy – family and friends – can sometimes not be the person that we think they are. Shapeshifters are very interesting creatures. These monsters are unlike most any other monster out there, they are able to change their form into anything they desire, and they are one of the most human-like monsters, which makes them even scarier. The human-like monsters are usually the scariest because then humans are able to see themselves

In the following scene, we see Charlie has made his own change from within. He calls his brother for help with his script. Previously, Donald was the one who asked Charlie for help and Charlie would have seen it as a waste of time or a sign of weakness (because he was not strictly adhering to his artistic ideals) for him to ask for Donald’s help. Charlie begins to act uncharacteristically and even decides to stalk Susan Orlean at the Orchid Thief’s house, taking Donald’s place. However both Charlie and the audience don’t truly grasp the meaning of the seminar leader’s words until Charlie and Donald have their conversation in the swamp. While

During the interview, Charlie was seated in front of a photo of the actual Nicholas. He looked back and forth at the photo and “Nicholas”, and he knew that he could not be the boy he was claiming to be. Charlie was familiar with a tactic for identification adopted by Scotland Yard in which ears were a means of identification, just like fingerprints, and the two in question were remarkably different. Charlie could not let the mystery of Nicholas Barclay go, so he began to speak with neighbors who said that before Nicholas had gone missing, the family constantly argued resulting in the police being at the residence two or three times a month. This led Charlie to believe that there was more going on than what family was telling everyone. He looked into police reports after Nicholas went missing, and a few months after the disappearance, Nicholas’ brother Jason called the police saying that Nicholas was attempting to break into the home. This is often a tactic people use to make other people believe that the person is still alive, so the reality that something happened inside of that home became more

I think Charlie’s villain is his own subconscious. He has trouble throughout the story with letting himself out and participating in the things around him. Charlie also hides things from himself; he was able to block out an extremely traumatic event in his childhood. Coming to terms with it was truly hard, but in the end he finally is able to face it and realize what actually happened. Society is another villain. We see so many relatable issues formed by society that affect our characters in the novel. They have to overcome those obstacles and be who they truly