Connection Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the Red Scare

 How do the pod people describe their existence?  What language do they use to try to convince Miles & Becky to give in?  Why is this significant?

 Karl Marx  “The Communist Manifesto”

 How do the pod people describe their existence?  What language do they use to try to convince Miles & Becky to give in?  Why is this significant?  A collective identity  Without individuality  Without human passion  Without love, without faith

 Due Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013  Assignment: In a well-developed “reaction” paper of at least two (2) typed, double-spaced pages of twelve (12) point font, discuss the relationship that the play The Crucible & the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers have with the Red Scare of the 1950s. How are both works responding to, commenting on, or exploiting the fear of “widespread Communist infiltration” of America? Does Miller’s play respond to the political climate of the 1950s in a deeper, more meaningful way than the film does? Is the film or the play a better allegory illustrating the how the Red Scare and McCarthyism spread paranoia across the United States?  Create a thesis responding to one of the above questions. Organize your paper into a discussion of the play, a discussion of the film, and then a comparison of the two works. Make sure you reference a specific scene from the play and a specific scene from the film – don’t talk about the entire works in vague generalities.

 1949 – China goes communist, The Soviets develop their own atomic bomb  1950 – Julius & Ethel Rosenberg are executed as communist spies who turned over atomic secrets  1951 – House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigates spies in the State Dept and the Army  Are your neighbors communist spies?

THE CRUCIBLE  Accusations of witchcraft  They look just like everyone else, how can you tell who is a witch/communist?  Irrational INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS  Accusations of imposters  They look just like everyone else, how can you tell who is an imposter/communist?  Irrational

CRUCIBLE  1692 – too far away in time to be meaningful. Weird Puritan society INVASION  Sci-fi horror. Too unrealistic.

CRUCIBLE  There were no witches.  There were real communist spies.  Court room scenes parallel the HUAC scenes INVASION  It’s exaggerated. It’s not like the communists were taking over whole towns.  Pod people share a collective identity which parallels how communism is supposed to work.