One major theme of The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street by Rod Serling is: Don't Jump to Conclusions. One example of this theme is when Les Goodman's car starts up on its own. The neighbors saw that the car started on its own, and since they didn't have a logical explanation, they just blamed Les of being an alien. They shouldn’t have just accused him of being an alien because that would make Les not want to help them and they should have been trying to work together instead of against each other. Pg. 75-76. Another case of someone in the story jumping to conclusions was when Charlie shot and killed Pete Van Horn. Charlie saw a dark figure and assumed that it was the monster. This caused fear to take control of him, which led to him not thinking logically and just shooting. Charlie should have asked the figure to identify themselves first. This caused the residents to argue with Charlie, which was the opposite of what they wanted to do. Pg. 82-83 Finally, the residents were jumping to conclusions when they just started to fight, yell, and accuse one another of being aliens or monsters. They were trying to find a scapegoat and deflect attention from themselves. They weren't really thinking logically, they were just trying to get the others to believe it is not them. This shows that they didn't care what happened to the other person, they just used the little evidence they had to try to blame someone else, exaggerating and really just assuming that an idiosyncrasy that a person has is why they are a monster. Pg. 85 In conclusion, Don't Jump to Conclusions is one of the many themes that fit in The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. There are many examples of them just jumping to conclusions, which most of the time led to negative consequences. The residents making assumptions burned many bridges between them and could make them paranoid for the rest of their lives. These examples are why Don't Jump to Conclusions is a fitting theme for The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street Theme: Don't Jump to Conclusions.
Evidence 1: Les Goodman's car starts up on its own and he gets accused of being the monster.
It just started on its own! Guys I don't know what is happening!
Evidence 2: Charlie shoots the dark figure approaching them, only to find out that he killed Pete Van Horn.
I... I Didn't know
Evidence 3: After Charlie accuses Tommy of being the monster, the residents start to agree but that morphs into them accusing each other of being the monster and they start to fight.