46 pages • 1 hour read
Rod SerlingThe Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
Fiction | Play | YA | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Essay Topics
Creative Assignment: Imagine you are remaking “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” for the modern day. What changes would you make to modernize the screenplay’s story and theming? Would you make your script an allegory for a current issue? Why or why not? If yes, what issue would you address?
Is “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” an allegory for McCarthyism? Argue for or against this reading.
Compare and contrast “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” with one of the following Twilight Zone episodes: “The Shelter,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” “Nick of Time,” “The Invaders,” “It’s a Good Life,” or “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” Make sure to consider genre and setting as well as thematic, stylistic, narrative, moral, and tonal parallels/differences in your analysis.
