English 7

Periods 8-9

15 November 2019

Analytical Essay: The Monstrosity of Human Behavior

INTRO: In society, human beings can display characteristics that are positive or negative, depending upon the situation at hand. In Rod Serling's teleplay, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, the citizens of Maple Street display characteristics that are not positive, but rather extremely negative, as after a young boy, Tommy, mentions that aliens turned off the power in their town, the citizens become an angry mob and eventually treat their neighbors with little respect and soon become violent towards one another. As the teleplay continues, the reader learns that the two figures that started the power outage were beings from another planet and they conducted this social experiment to see how the humans would respond to the conflict of having a power outage. To the figures' dismay, the humans, instead of finding a reasonable solution to the problem of the power outage, end up turning on each other rather than working together to resolve this issue. Therefore, in the teleplay the main human flaws that the residents of Maple Street possess are #1suspicion, #2fear, and #3violence.

Body 1: First and foremost, the residents of Maple Street become very suspicious of their neighbors when a young boy named Tommy discusses a recent comic book he read that focuses upon aliens from outer space, which made the people on Maple Street suspicious of each other. In the beginning of the teleplay, all of the adults that live on Maple Street suffer a power outage and they are extremely confused about what caused the outage in the first place. A flash of light and a loud roar is heard by the citizens, and they assume this anomaly is the culprit of causing the power outage, leaving everything without electricity to power their household devices. In fact, after believing this to be the cause of the outage, a ten-year-old by, Tommy, explains how the “monsters” or “aliens” in his comic book visited a street very similar to Maple Street and caused chaos and destruction to the human society. Due to this story-telling, the adults first find this to be nonsense, but then they start to believe Tommy’s story and they then start to believe one of the people who live on Maple Street is an alien from outer space that most likely caused the outage. The human flaw of the humans in this scenario is their suspicion of all of the people on Maple Street, as they are beginning to lose trust in their neighbors. This is when one of the characters, Steve, jokingly states, “Well, I guess what we’d better do then is to run a check on the neighborhood and see which ones of us are really human” (Serling, 145). Although Steve is joking, many of the neighbors seem to feel this way about the community after hearing young Tommy’s story about the aliens and having no information about the power outage. Consequently, suspicion is the main human flaw that occurs on Maple Street, as the residents start to become suspicious of each other once the power outage occurs and Tommy’s comic book plot is told.

Body 2:

Furthermore, fear is another negative trait displayed by the humans on Maple Street when all of the residents gather together and they shoot one of their fellow neighbors. Previously in the story, Pete Van Horn, goes to the other street called Floral Street to check and see if the power is working there. On his journey there, the rest of the residents continue to investigate the power outage while waiting for his return. During this time, the residents on Maple Street gather together still being suspicious one one another due to Tommy’s story. However, in the distance they see a shadowy figure approaching them in the dark and the entire group becomes fearful when, “The dark figure continues to walk toward them as the people stand there, fearful, mothers clutching children, men standing in front of their wives...Charlie swings around, raises his gun, and suddenly pulls the trigger” (Serling, 150). Out of fear, the residents reacted to this dark figure assuming it was a “monster” or “alien”, but, unfortunately, it was their dear neighbor Pete Van Horn. Out of fear, another negative flaw of the humans on Maple Street they reacted by killing one of their fellow humans due to the assumption of believing that the figure approaching them was a monster, as they did not think rationally about the situation and fear replaced their logical causing a terrible result to occur. Hence, fear is a human flaw displayed by many of the characters of Maple Street due to the fear they show.

Body 3:
Moreover, at the end of the teleplay, the worst human flaw of all is when the residents of Maple Street turn into an angry mob and act in a violent way towards their neighbors. Due to the suspicion and fear that the citizens have towards their neighbors, the unfortunate next negative action displayed was violence when all of the neighbors start to accuse each other of being and alien and everyone points the finger at each other. After all verbally accusing each other, the mob turns violent quickly and the citizens begin to attack one another as, “People shout, accuse, and scream as the lights go on and off. Then, slowly in the middle of this nightmarish confusion...Two figures appear, silhouetted against the bright lights” (Serling, 152). As a reader, one can understand that the residents of Maple Street, instead of working together to solve the issue of the power outage, instead turned to their most negative human flaws and reacted by not solving their problems and turning to violence making their problems worse. 

Conclusion: 

Ultimately, the human flaws that were demonstrated in the teleplay, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" affected all of the residents on Maple Street negatively, as fear, suspicion, and violence made neighbors who respected and trusted each other turn against one another rather quickly. The fear exhibited by the people caused chaos when all of the residents were frightened of the "monsters" or "aliens" assumed to be on Maple Street that their dear friend and neighbor Pete Van Horn was shot due to this irrational fear spreading like wildfire throughout the neighborhood. Each neighbor developed a suspicion against their neighbors for performing normal actions like fixing a Ham radio set or star-gazing because they believed that these normal daily activities were, in fact, ways in which their neighbors were communicating with beings from another planet due to the fear that was created from the unexplained power outage. Finally, the worst human trait displayed was violence when all of the loving neighbors turned into a chaotic mob at the end of the screenplay and physically harmed one another because of their false belief that the power outage was caused by "aliens" and that one of their fellow neighbors was an alien disguised as a human being. Humanity can be peaceful, yet, at times, all it takes is one person to create negativity among a group and civilization will crumble right before society's eyes.

 

 

 

 

Introduction | Body 1 | Body 2 | Body 3 | Conclusion
Hook. Specific background discussing the characters, author, text title, and setting (8)
Clear thesis statement with three reasons focusing upon the prompt (8)
6-8 sentences, transitions, and mechanics (4)


| Topic sentence with a transition that introduces the main idea #1 of the paragraph (5)
Cited example with author and page  number correctly included (5)
Relevant and clear explanations and examples(5)
8-10 sentences, transitions, and mechanics (5) | Topic sentence with a transition that introduces the main idea #2 of the paragraph (5)
Cited example with author and page number correctly included (5)
Relevant and clear explanations and examples(5)
8-10 sentences, transitions, and mechanics (5) | Topic sentence with a transition that introduces the main idea #3 of the paragraph (5)
Cited example with author and page number correctly included (5)
Relevant and clear explanations and examples(5)
8-10 sentences, transitions, and mechanics (5) | Rewording of the thesis statement with a transition (5)
Refocus three main points (5)
Leave your reader with something to think about (5)
6-8 sentences, transitions, and mechanics (5)