Social Issues in Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”

 Modern Times is a silent American comedy film directed by Charlie Chaplin and written by him, in which his iconic Little Tramp character fights to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a satire on the dreadful job and financial situations that many people encountered during the Great Depression, which Chaplin believes were brought about by the efficiencies of contemporary industrialization. The world into which the Tramp bid farewell was substantially different from the one into which he had been born two decades before the First World War, before the war. Then he had shared and symbolized the sufferings of all the poor in a world that was only just emerging from the nineteenth century.

The movie starts with a scene where a herd of sheep occupies the frame before making way for men in suits .This is an analogy about how the industrialized and modern society makes one loose their individuality .Even the comic scenes on the factory shop floor symbolizes social domination .In the industrialized world due to machines ,humans have been abased .Due to presence of machines ,now humans are in charge of minute portion of work which has belittled their presence .The humorous test of feeding machine which reduces lunchtime and increases work time shows the obsession that capitalists have with innovative technology and increased profits.

The movie also shows how there is intense regulation in industries. When Chaplin lights a smoke during breaktime he finally feels relieved but its only for  a short period of time before his boss cuts it short from the bathroom wall which said that workers should stop stalling around and get back to work which symbolizes that there is no getting away from the mechanic eyes of industrialized world .

Modern times therefore tries to spread across the message that how in the effort of being free the world has actually been caught up behind the bars of industrialization .Chaplin has geniously blended satire with slapstick comedy and subtly sends across the message of how capitalization has reduces humans to cogs in  machine, unacceptability of poverty, to note omnipresence of order and to hold up importance of humanization

Finally in the closing scene Chaplin and his lover a sitting by side of road .Tired and fed of the monotonous and mechanic world she asks that what is point of trying. By trying to lift her spirits Chaplin says ,”buck up- never say die”. Then they get and walk off to mountains .The movie ends on a positive note and gives hope that things might get better .