THE
TOOLS OF CONQUEST
An Analysis of
The Twilight Zone Episode:
“The Monsters Are
Due On Maple Street”
Andrew
Sieger
“Maple
Street, U.S.A. Late summer. A tree-lined little road of front porch
gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream
vendor. At the sound of the roar and the
flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43pm on Maple Street.
This
is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon.
Maple Street - in the last calm and reflective moment - before the
monsters came.”
The smooth yet ominous voice of the
Narrator (writer, producer Rod Serling) invites us into the idyllic world of
America in the year 1960. America seemed
serene and perfect yet lurking beneath the surface was the Cold War threat of
nuclear annihilation, awful racial divisions and overt sexism. America is yet to be shattered by the JFK
assassination and the war in Viet Nam. Maple
Street, a microcosm for the country, is disrupted when a fiery meteor streaks
across the sky. Something unexpected
arrives from the unknown. Something
alien. Something not us.
The meteor passes overhead and knocks
out all the electronic and mechanical equipment on the block goes out. Anything mechanical is rendered useless; no transistor
radios, even the automobiles are dead.
It wipes clean anything modern and technological. This is no ordinary blackout. The adults are at a loss. As frightened, desperate people often do, they
seek answers from anyone willing to provide them. In this case it’s a twelve year old boy,
Tommy, in cuffed blue jeans and Howdy Doody haircut, explains the meteor is a
UFO from Outer Space. It has knocked out
the power as a prelude to an invasion.
He goes on to tell the crowd the aliens have sent an advance party ahead
to pose as humans until the attack begins.
The Invaders are people who look and act just like everyone else but
underneath they are alien. They are other. They don the guise of father, mother, son and
daughter. This perfect family is really
a 5th column sleeper cell determined to destroy our society.
As the seemingly ridiculous ideas
brought forth by Tommy are believed to be true, there is a montage of the
terrified faces of the residents of Maple Street. A chill runs down our spine as we see once
rational people overtaken by fear and baseless nonsense.
Across the street, Les’ car
starts up all by itself. Everyone,
including Les, is dumbstruck as to how and why his car’s engine fired up
without anyone turning the key. Instead
of maintaining solidarity, the neighbors begin to suspiciously question, Why
him? Why his car?
“He didn’t come out to look at
the meteor,” a neighbor says.
Another neighbor, Charlie adds,
“He always was an oddball. Him and his
whole family. Real oddballs.”
They form a tight group, a mob,
to walk over and try to get some answers.
A woman confess’ something she previously kept to herself until
now. The state of panic frees the
townsfolk to unleash thoughts they would normally keep to themselves. She has seen Les “up in the wee hours of the
morning looking up to the sky. As if he was waiting for someone. As if he was looking for something.”
Les claims to have insomnia and staring
up at the star relaxes him. On any other
day that’s a believable, rational excuse but today is different. The crowd steps back in fear. He is no longer their friend and
neighbor. He is the other. The power of the mob is to single out an
individual and cast them as a monster.
Les, sensing their fear of him, warns them, “You’re starting something
here. That’s what you should be
frightened of. You’re letting something
begin here that’s a nightmare.”
After the commercial break, night
descends as the once peaceful citizens of Maple Street stand outside their
homes like sentries on guard duty. They
watch Les but they also watch each other.
Charlie says, “Under normal circumstances we could let it go by. But these aren’t normal circumstances.”
That’s the excuse of every
demagogue or dictator who uses unexpected events to seize power. He continues, “It’s like going back to the
Dark Ages or something.” That’s the perfect description for what’s happening on
Maple Street. The Dark Ages were a time
of fear and superstition when the mysteries of science was so far beyond the
comprehension of people, they sought answers in religion, who, in turn, used
fear to control them. Witch Hunts and
Inquisitions were held not as much to identify and eliminate the enemy as it
was to placate and satisfy a terrified populace. The harbinger of fear and doom in the Dark
Ages, among many things, was a meteor.
The loudest, most vocal, most
accusatory fool becomes the leader of the mad, insatiable gang. On Maple Street, that fool is Charlie. He accuses the rational man, Steve Brand;
the level headed one who tries to diffuse the situation, of being in league
with the beast.
Steve shouts at Charlie and the
others, “Stop telling me who’s dangerous and who isn’t. And who’s safe and who’s a menace. You’re all set to find a scapegoat. You’re all desperate to point some kind of
finger at a neighbor. Believe me
friends, the only thing that’s going to happen is we’re going to eat each other
up alive.”
And, unfortunately, that’s exactly
what happens.
They hear footsteps
approaching. A shadow emerges from the
darkness. It slowly walks towards
them. A montage of frightened faces
shows us the fear gripping and tightening the denizens of Maple Street.
Tommy says, “It’s the monster! It’s the monster!”
Charlie grabs a gun. He wants to prove he’s stronger than
Steve. He has to protect the rest of
us. He shoots the monster. With one shot this terrifying beast falls to
the ground. Finally, everyone is safe
and the monster is dead.
But it turns out the monster was
fellow neighbor Pete Van Horn who, at the start of this nightmare, walked over
to the next block looking for help.
Charlie realizes he murdered an innocent man and panics. He’s sorry.
He didn’t know. He was only trying
to protect his family.
Then the lights go on in
Charlie’s house. Why is he the only one
with lights?
He’s the monster! The horde turns on its de-facto leader, even
Les joins in and says Charlie is the monster – glad the spotlight’s off
him. Les adds to the pyre by saying
Charlie accused everyone else and murdered Pete Van Horne because he’s the
monster. The crowd fumes into a
frenzy. They throw rocks at Charlie and
cut his forehead. Blood drips down his
face. Desperate to save himself he
offers up the real answer. “I know who
the monster is. I know who doesn’t
belong among us,” he says, “It’s the kid.
It’s Tommy. He’s the one.”
A leader seizes power by claiming
to be the one, the only one, who can show you and defeat the monsters among us. To the terrified people of Maple Street it
makes sense. Tommy knew what was going
on from the start. He knew the
infiltrator’s plan. How could he know
unless he’s one of them? Unless he’s the
monster? Steve pleads for them to
stop. The mob doesn’t want to stop. They want to be reassured their fears are
real. They want an antidote to the
evil. They want blood.
The pack chases after the young
boy and his mother. They stop when they
see lights go on and off in different houses.
Everyone is accused of being the monster. Total madness erupts on Maple Street. Off kilter camera angles effectively convey
the insanity. Everyone is accused of
being a monster. Maple Street is
demolished in a hail of screams, broken glass and gunshots. Their tiny Utopia is destroyed, not by the
monster, but by its own citizens.
We pull back from the deadly lunacy
to reveal who is responsible for the loss of power. In a classic Rod Serling – Twilight Zone twist,
an alien spaceship is perched on a hill overlooking the block. Tommy was right, the meteor was a UFO. Two Aliens watch the people rip apart their
once idyllic home.
“Throw them into darkness for a
few hours and then sit back and watch the pattern repeat itself. …They pick the most dangerous enemy they can
find. And it’s themselves. All we need do is sit back and watch. …The world is full of Maple Streets. We’ll go from one to the other and we’ll let
them destroy themselves. One to the
other. One to the other. One to the other.
The voice of the narrator returns,
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily
come with bombs and explosions and fallout.
There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to
be found only in the minds of men. For
the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless,
frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the
children and the children yet unborn.
And the pity of it is that these cannot be confined to the Twilight
Zone.”
In most cases, the enemy does not
have the power to destroy our society – only we can bring end to our freedom
and democracy in our own country. This
parable, written in 1960, was an allusion to communist witch hunts like the
McCarthy Hearings but seeing it today reveals that Rod Serling was not commenting
on any one event or person but on human nature.
He had no idea that terrorism would become the biggest fear of
Americans. But he knew the dangers of a
mob and the power of the mob mentality to overtake the minds of people. He wanted to show it in all its ugliness and
stupidity. He wanted to show us how not
to act and the dire consequences if we give in to fear and prejudice. Our destruction will not come with bombs or
bullets. It will arrive when we form an
irrational horde and turn on our friends and neighbors because they look, act or
worship differently than us. Then we
become the monsters.
Rod Serling usually ends his
narration in the opposite way he does here.
He often says, “…and these things can only happen in the Twilight Zone.” But for this very special
episode with a very special message - a message that could save this country in
the event of another terrorist attack - he warns us that it could happen anytime,
anywhere. We all live on Maple
Street. We are all citizens of… The Twilight Zone.
