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