The Tramp - Significance

Significance

Chaplin's social commentary, while critical of the faults and excesses created by the capitalist system, also shows support and belief in the “American Dream”. In Modern Times, Chaplin creates a “portrayal consistent with popular leftist stereotypes of wealthy capitalists and oppressed workers in the 1930s.” While the Tramp and his fellow workers sweat on the assembly line, the president of the Electro Steel Company works on a puzzle and reads the funnies in the newspaper. The obsession of working with efficiency and assembly line productivity ultimately drives the Tramp mad. This could be seen as “an attack on the capitalist rationalization of production.” However, “the film also guardedly affirms American middle-class, particularly its optimism.” An example of this is sequence depicting a dream that the Tramp has, in which he and the gamine live a traditional middle-class lifestyle.

The Tramp and the gamine find a rundown shack to live in. The gamine cooks a cheap breakfast, and then the Tramp is off to work, while the gamine stays to maintain the home. This scene in the rundown shack is an allusion to a middle-class setting. By the ending of Modern Times, “the film seems tailored to please the middle-class optimist.” Due to all of their failings the final scene had the gamine stating, “What's the use of trying?”, with the Tramp replying with, “Buck up–never say die.” Chaplin was unique among the silent film comedians because of his physical shtick, but also because of the universality of his class struggle humor and his social commentary. “What makes Modern Times decidedly different from Chaplin's previous three films are the political references and social realism that keep intruding into Charlie's world.” “No comedian before or after him has spent more energy depicting people in their working lives.” “Though there had been films depicting the lives of immigrants and urban workers, no filmmaker before Chaplin had created their experience so humanly and lovingly.”

Chaplin used not one, but two similar-looking characters to the Tramp in The Great Dictator (released October 15, 1940); however, this was an all-talking film (Chaplin's first). The film was inspired by the noted similarity between Chaplin's appearance (most notably his small mustache) and that of German dictator Adolf Hitler. Chaplin used this similarity to create a dark version of the Tramp character in parody of the dictator. (In his book My Autobiography, Chaplin stated that he was unaware of the Holocaust when he made the film; if he had been, he writes, he wouldn't have been able to make a comedy satirizing Hitler). The barber, while having many similarities to the Tramp, is not considered a version of that character, although he does engage in several Tramp-like comedy sequences. A noticeable difference is that the barber has a streak of grey in his hair; the Tramp had always been depicted as having dark hair. Also, the barber lacks the ill-fitting clothes of The Tramp, and is clearly portrayed as having a profession. His character does share much of The Tramp's character, notably his idealism and anger at seeing unfairness.