Fear and stigma can lead people down a dark path. The story, The Monsters are
Due on Maple Street, teaches us many lessons. One such lesson is unnerving how accurate it may be. The thoughts, fear, stigma, and prejudices of the human mind can turn normal people into monsters causing overreaction, mob mentality, and violence.
The stigma of the situation caused mass overreaction. The residents made rash decisions without much thought. Charlie, a normal man with no bad intentions, shot
Pete Van Horn, an average man that walked to the next neighborhood, because he thought he was the monster. Charlie couldn’t see Pete and let the overwhelming fear of the situation get to him. He immediately regretted this, having had no intention of doing this horrible
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This idea was taken straight from the plot of his comic book.
It is insane that this would ever have any validity to an adult. The residents made these decisions out of fear and unnecessary stigma.
The thoughts and prejudices of humans can lead to unnecessary accusations and mobs. Multiple were accused in a short period of time. This is because the residents were looking for a scapegoat. Les Goodman, an odd but well-going man, was forcefully accused of contacting aliens. They used him looking at the sky as evidence.
He stated that he suffered from insomnia. It is completely normal to look at the sky at night. It is almost unnatural if you never look at the stars. After this incident, they accused Steve, a calm man who had not blamed the others. They stormed to his house and demanded to see the radio on which he had worked. He was accused of talking to the aliens and monsters on this radio. These radios were common at the time to own and can take a long time to build. These accusations were caused by a simple but powerful thing, thoughts.
Immense fear invoked violence. Residents began to accuse multiple people.