"The Monsters are due on Maple Street" revolves around the paranoia that arises from the neighbourhood of Maple Street when an innocent boy associates the power shortage with the arrival of human-looking monsters. Loving neighbours turn onto each other, accusing their eccentricities (such as insomnia) as proof of them being aliens. Chaos ensues when Steve, the most sensible and liberal character, is unable to stop the aggressive Charlie from mistakenly shooting a neighbour. In the end, two aliens who are looking at the pandemonium reflect on the weaknesses of human nature; and how suspicion and paranoia can easily be manipulated into self-destruction.
Themes of mob mentality and human nature are explored in this episode, but more importantly Serling satirizes a specific historic and social event in the 1950s: McCarthyism. It was a period in America when there was "heightened fears of communist influence on American society" and thus thousands of Americans were accused as being Communists without formal evidence. This is reflected in the plot and the dialogue between the aliens, and I think that Serling has addressed this issue very effectively through a seemingly innocuous sci-fi story, exemplifying and criticizing the absurdity of McCarthyism.
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