Diogo de Jesus Moita Pinto Garnel
Instructor: Josephine Horna
Academic Writing ENWR 1101 2E
11/11/2014
Comedy, The Best Way of Criticizing

In today’s society, it is really usual to criticize everything around us. We criticize the government, friends, family, everything we want. A few decades ago, the situation wasn’t the same. There was no freedom expression and every act or word a person would say had to be carefully planed or one would have to suffer severe consequences about it. In ‘Modern Times’ by Charlie Chaplin, comedy is used as a smart way to express the feeling that the working class people had in their daily basis. My objective with this essay is to express how comedy in Chaplin’s movie is used as criticism to the society. When Chaplin produced this movie, it wasn’t well accepted in the society. Observing the movie, it is possible to understand many hidden messages not only related to politics, but also with the atmosphere felt by the common population. In the beginning of the movie it is possible to start watching this messages in form of comedy in the very first scene. The pack of mindless sheep, symbolized the people, following the leader was describing the way the early industrial revolution was when the women and children had to follow orders from the factory owners or else they would get whipped or unemployed. The big clock also symbolized how much industrialization changes, that time was valuable and that the workers worked by the clock clocking in and out.
In Chaplin’s movie, it is evident the fight between the man and the machine. Represented by an industrial worker named Little Trump, Chaplin uses the comedy to express how the machines and all the new industrial machines are replacing the men’s work. The abuse that workers suffer is also represented when the boss of the industrial factory keeps overloading the rhythm and the time the workers have to do their job. Due to this overload of work, Little Trump gets crazy and starts acting in