Category: Student posts

Chaplin’s “Modern Times” and Davis’ “Life In The Iron Mills” are in mutual consent of the socio-economic conditions during harsh industrial times. The inconsiderate owner of the assembly line in Modern Times is synonymous to Kirby in “Life In The Iron Mills”. They are similar in treating labor that is nothing more than ‘hands’ to them. The effort to implement the food machine in the assembly line serves as an evidence for the inferior treatment the labor got from the owner of the factories. They weren’t even allowed to take time off to eat a meal. Machines and technology, nowadays considered to be a helping hand for human beings, were treated better than human.

Unethical practices by factory owners directly led to criminal behavior and socialist movements. Chaplin uses humor to make a mockery out of the inequitable upper class. His nervous breakdown and his consistent efforts to go to jail for a better life, constitute the crime that took place due to lack of social mobility and opportunity for the labor class. Chaplin sets a benchmark of social injustice as he shows how his lower class status contributes to him being considered as the leader of the work boycott when he wasn’t acquainted to it in any way. Chaplin can be seen as a good man in the movie; he helps the police to capture the prisoners attempting to escape. He receives executive treatment in jail and is thus reluctant to leave, despite having a guaranteed job. This reflects on how poor the working conditions were.

Similarly, Hugh in ‘Life In The Iron Mills’ also experiences a nervous breakdown and commits a criminal act. He strives to improve his living conditions and after listening to a conversation of the three better off men, figures out that working at the iron mill won’t help this purpose. Hugh’s ontological belief that everyone is equal in the eyes of God inspires him but also eventually directs him to commit suicide. He thinks that God would understand if he doesn’t return the money back to Mitchell as all people are equal in His eyes. He is later imprisoned for this shameful act, suffers in jail and eventually slits his wrist. He gains hope dramatically (due to his religious beliefs) to have a better future. However, he fails in an effort to achieve his maximum potential and gradually loses hope after several desperate attempts to get out of jail.

Living in the Industrial Revolution must have sucked. Honestly, can anyone here really say they haven’t started to appreciate life a little bit more after having read everything we have about life in factories? Both Davis and Melville basically describe the factories as the Devil’s armpits, and Chaplin’s character quite literally goes mad working there. I, for one, can definitely say that I am very happy to be sitting comfortably in my dorm room, unmarried, and reading about this life, than being unmarried and shipped off to go live it.

Having said that, I should probably get to my point. In this day and age, humans are treated like indispensable and important beings, which is what we are. Sadly, that wasn’t always the case. Take “Life in the Iron-Mills” for example. The hundreds and hundreds of mill-hands working there were treated like filth. Davis says, “A reality of soul-starvation, of living death, that meets you every day under the besotted faces on the street,” (Davis 2769) giving an accurate account of what the lives of the workers were like, their pain clearly visible on their faces. She mentions the conditions that they worked under and things are brought up that would never happen in our current day in age. Men in an iron mill working without shirts? Unfathomable! But back then, nobody cared about the lower class. They were just there to do the work.

Similarly, in “The Tartarus of Maids” the working girls are hardly given a second thought. They aren’t even seen as human beings anymore. Melville even compares them to horses, tied up to a rack (Melville 1272) at one point. After being asked why the females are always called girls, the factory owner says something very striking: “For our factory here, we will not have married women; they are apt to be off-and-on too much. We want none but steady workers: twelve hours to the day, day after day, through the three hundred and sixty-five days.” (Melville 1278) He basically says that he doesn’t care about anything other than them getting work done. He refuses to hire a married woman because she might possibly not show up for work one day. This right here shows again that the humans in this time were not humans to their bosses, or owners rather, but merely slaves.

And then there’s Chaplin’s Modern Times, which takes a completely different approach to convey the same message. Chaplin’s movie is seen as a comedy or parody of how working life was for the working class during the Great Depression. While the factory doesn’t exactly look like Hell, like it did in “Life in the Iron-Mills,” it’s still clear that it is not a fun place to be. In the beginning of the film, the workers all settle at their stations and start their work. Immediately the factory owner demands that they work faster. We cut to Chaplin and see the repercussions this brings: he can barely keep up with the speed of the conveyor belt. This, of course, is viewed as humorous, but when you really think about it, it’s awful. This goes on for a while; Chaplin struggling to keep up with the work and messing up. Then lunchtime rolls around, and a company wants to demonstrate their feeding machine so lunch breaks can be cut out entirely. Now, let’s think about this concept for a second. A feeding machine? Really? I’m sure we can all agree that breaks are imperative to perform. I highly doubt anyone here has sat down and banged out an entire six-page paper without checking Facebook at least once or grabbing something to eat. But getting back to the movie, this feeding machine obviously doesn’t work. And once again, because it’s a comedic movie, we all laughed when it didn’t. I’ll admit, it was funny when Chaplin’s face got covered in food and the mouth-wiper hit him in the face repeatedly, but can you imagine if that happened in real life? And then here’s the kicker: instead of turning down the machine because it was injuring a member of his staff, the factory owner doesn’t want to buy the machine because it wasn’t efficient enough. I mean, seriously? That’s your reason for not wanting to buy it? Once again it becomes clear that the upper class really doesn’t care about the workers. And I’m sure everyone caught the comparison in the opening act of the movie: workers going to work aren’t any better than sheep being driven into their cages.

If you ask me, the slogan for the Industrialization should have been: “Humans don’t matter, as long as our stuff gets done!”

In our previous class, we discussed the connection between the two-part structure of Herman Melville’s The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids. Some stated that the role of the narrators connected the two stories while others stated that the connection between the two was the bachelor’s lavish life being at the expense of the women’s hardships. In her article,’The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Made’: A Dialogue about Experience, Understanding, and Truth, literary critic Karen Weyler believes that “the narrator is key to understanding this puzzling work”. Weyler expands that the connection of the two stories is through the narrator’s “movement from passivity and observation to direct engagement with life”. I agree with Weyler that through the experiences of the narrator in each story, the readers can view the two-part structure as a one complete story.

The narrator himself becomes the link between these two Melville stories. The narrator in The Paradise of Bachelors is simply a passive, inactive observer who reflects upon the lavish life of the bachelors surrounding him. The narrator is not a lawyer like the bachelors; however, he is a silent guest. The readers see that the narrator does not engage in conversation, but rather self-reflects and self-analyzes those around him. However, in the Tartarus of Maids, though the narrator is still observing, he engages in active conversation with those surrounding him. For example, the narrator asks Cupid, “You make only blank paper; no printing of any sort, I suppose? All blank paper, don’t you?” (Melville 1272). In addition, he further engages in conversation by asking Cupid, “What makes those girls so sheet-white, my lad” (Melville 1274). As the readers can see, the narrator becomes actively engaged through questions into understanding the awful status of these maids.

Weyler believes that it is the narrator’s active engagement with his experience at the paper mill that allows him to understand the paradise of the privileged bachelors. It is common for people to say there can be no rich without the poor, no heaven without hell, no happiness without suffering. In agreement with Weyler, I believe the narrator’s exclamation, “Oh! Paradise of Bachelors! And oh! Tartarus of Maids!” (Melville 1279) suggests to the readers that the he now understands the ‘larger truth’ that no heaven can exist without hell. In other words, the narrator’s movement from passive to active engagement juxtaposes the difference between the two groups of people, allowing for the discovery of a ‘larger truth’, which ultimately connects this two-part structure into one complete story.

After watching a Charlie Chaplin film, it becomes evident that there really is something different about it; something that in reality cannot be put into words, for words would take away from the overall message of the film. When words are spoken in a movie, we are forced to interpret what the producer has created in a very specific way. However, when a film all of a sudden has very few words, it can now be looked at from a multitude of different angles. A person’s actions in a film mean so much more. For instance, Chaplin trying to tighten people’s buttons with his wrench takes on a whole new meaning. There are some topics that are so powerful and have affected an enormous amount of people in so many ways that words do not do them justice. The industrial revolution, in combination with the great depression, are without question, examples of such topics. Hence Chaplin’s portrayal is quite appropriate.
Interestingly, Chaplin’s use of silent films, almost in a contrasting way, can be connected to both Fetterley’s analysis of Life in the Iron Mills and Weyler’s literary analysis of The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tarturus of Maids. Both Davis and Melville seem to indicate in their works that limitations of language do exist. Davis makes this point directly when she states “I dare not put this secret into words” and “I dare make my meaning no clearer” (2764). Melville makes such a point evident in the misunderstanding that Cupid and the narrator seem to be constantly having. Cupid never seems to quite understand what the narrator is asking and is unable to realize how confused the narrator is, while the narrator seems unable to put into words what he really wants to ask. This is shown when the narrator asks Cupid, “you make only blank paper, no printing of any sort I suppose?” (329) Cupid responds “Certainly, what else should a paper factory make?” (329). Language has definitely resulted in considerable misunderstanding between the two.
To make up for their general assumption that limitations of the language exist, both authors use a narrator that seems to constantly pressure us to realign our values. As Fetterley states, “the narrator’s task is to make her readers see what is currently invisible to them” (310). The narrators from each story definitely do this for they not only guide the reader, but also state their own positions. Thus, just as Chaplin uses silence and excellent acting to make for the failure of language, both authors instead use narrators to make up for the limitations that language poses.

In the article, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids’: A dialogue about experience, understanding, and truth”, Weyler focuses on the role of the narrator in conveying Melville’s message. She explains that while the reader cannot reach an understanding of the purpose of story without reading the second part, “The Tartarus of Maids”, the narrator also does not reach a higher understanding of his experiences until he leaves the paper mill. I agree with Weyler’s claim here because it seems as though the narrator in this story is very similar to reader. He gains incite about the problems in his society as the story unfolds and comes to an ultimate realization at the end.

Weyler explains that as the story progresses, it “dramatizes [the narrator’s] movement from passivity and observation to direct engagement with life” (Weyler). While in The Paradise, the narrator merely describes the gluttonous way of the bachelors but does nothing about it. This attitude shifts when he is exposed to the women’s suffering in The Tartarus, and actively attempts to make sense of the situation. The narrator describes the location of the bachelor’s dinner, exclaiming, “I know not how many strange stairs I climbed to get to it. But a good dinner, with famous company, should be well earned” (Melville 1261). The narrator is clearly disapproving of the bachelors’ attitudes, as he uses sarcasm to emphasize how conceited the bachelors are. However, despite his satirical comments, he never actively tries to come to a deeper understanding of the sitiuation. Conversely, when he becomes of aware of the horrible conditions and treatment of women at the paper mills, he declares, “This is the very counterpart of the Paradise of Bachelors, but snowed upon, and frost painted to a sepulchre” (Melville 1269). Rather than merely complaining about the problems of the mill, the narrator is actually able to come to some sort of a realization. Additionally, he engages in conversation with the workers in the mill to try to learn more about the situation.

The narrator acts only as an observer throughout the first part of the story because he has not yet been exposed to life at the paper mills. Just as the reader cannot analyze a text before finishing it, the narrator is unable to come to a deeper realization about his society until he has been exposed to both worlds.

Chaplin’s film, Modern Times, parodies the unfortunate life of the blue-collar workers during the Great Depression, stating his discontent of their exploitation. From the obscure outbursts of Chaplin to the obvious symbols, Modern Times takes a definitive stance in attacking the industrial institution in its treatment of the every man.

Immediately, the film opens to a screen of a frantic flock of sheep, which then transitions to a group of men going to work. The juxtaposition, serves as the view of how the bachelor’s – as Melville would say – view the working class; nothing more than a group of blind sheep. The laborer receives this depiction to display the degradation their superiors have of them, an unjustifiable treatment for a fellow man. Apart from the animal comparison, Chaplin creates a parallel to the workers and the machines through his obnoxious outburst. His breakdown, displays him going through the factory interrupting the work of the men, but continuing to do his duty, continuing to turn the corkscrew. In a sense, Chaplin can be defined as a dysfunctional machine, since he doesn’t operate in the traditional sense of a mental breakdown of random cries; instead he leaves his station but continues to do his job. This homogenization of man and machine, reveal how to the factory militant, the laborer is just another piece to the almighty machine. Finally, the working class can be defined as nothing more than innocuous animals with machine duties.

Chaplin continues to criticize the industrial machine, by exaggerating the power of the bosses. Chaplin displays the boss’s appearance in a jocular manner, but the intention is to show how controlling the heads of the industry are. The boss’s appearance in the bathroom displays this sense of all seeing and all knowing. In a sense, the boss is their God, deepening the workers’ subordination. Furthermore, the boss lies in his heaven of clear air, while these men suffer under the fumes of the machines.

Retrospectively, Chaplin strikes the industrial institution through subtle symbolism and overstated parallels, breaking the façade of the so-called fairness the establishment creates.

In both Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin and the Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids by Herman Melville, the workers suffer in between individuality and the whole system of industrialization. Whereas Chaplin, at first, is physically unable to stop his actions of turning the screws and later mentally goes mad and gets send to psychiatric hospital, the girls have also been dehumanized by the machinery in the factory.

Under his demanding boss, Chaplin is forced to work faster and faster to achieve efficiency, and he does not even have the time to scratch his face or rest a bit. He is unable to catch up with the speed and eventually goes crazy and turns every screw, button, and even human body he sees. From this situation, it is obvious that industrialization has became too overwhelmed to people at the age, and Chaplin is telling the audience that technology has a negative side that damages individuality. Further, he has a horrible working environment, which is dirty and he even has to become one of the experimenter for the new invention of food feeder that is not functioning. He even rather stays in the prison than come back to the work field because prison has a better living condition. Overall, the film is a speechless protest for the workers and the unemployed who live miserably during the Great Depression.

Similarly, the girls have to work with the “inflexible iron animal” (Melville 1277) in the paper mill. The machine is described as animal to depict its ruthlessness, which is a share trait with Chaplin’s boss. Also, Melville describes, “The girls did not so much seem accessory wheels to the general machinery as mere cogs to the wheels,” (Melville 1271). From this quotation, we can infer that the girls have been dehumanized by the machines, or even become parts of the machine. Just like Chaplin, the girls have terrible working condition, in which they devote themselves and their lives entirely to the machines and the factory. While Chaplin speaks for the workers in the Great Depression, From Melville, he advocates the awareness for unfair treatment of the girl workers, similar to Chaplin’s intention to speak for the workers and the unemployed in Great Depression.

Both Modern Times and the Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids discuss about the ruthless authority in the factories, Chaplin’s boss and the machines that the girls rely on, and the dehumanization of the workers.

During the time of the Great Depression this nation underwent a series of changes. Many of its wealthy and middle class people lost everything they had and fell to poverty. Because the wealthy could not resist to such unforeseen conditions, some preferred to commit suicide rather than live the miserable life that encountered them. The people who were already in poverty fell to suffer from even worse conditions than they had previous to the depression. In Charlie Chaplin’s film “Modern Times” the crisis that the Great Depression caused is revealed through its characters. Charlie, a factory worker whose boss had cameras installed in every corner of the factory to ensure the worker’s effectiveness, suffered from the work overload caused by his boss.  At a time of despair, business owners solely cared about beating their competition and maximizing profits despite the fact that people did not have a cent to buy food. The cold heartedness, ignorance and greed of the wealthy can be seen in the film through the rough treatment the factory workers received.  At a time like the Great Depression, the nation’s people needed to be united to defeat the continuous struggle against poverty, but instead the wealthy continued to only care for their own profits.

The harsh life that individuals encountered during the Great Depression led them to take actions that they may not have even considered under distinct circumstances. The woman, who was left homeless after her father died, stole from bakeries in order to feed herself.  Her hunger forced her to steal in order to survive. Like her, many others were faced with the same situation. The conditions to live in the society were so dreadful that the character Charlie preferred to live in jail because, while imprisoned, he at least had his meals and shelter secured. The agony had to be unbearable for someone to prefer confinement to liberty. The distress that the people suffered during the depression is simply unimaginable to most people today. The people in our society sometimes do not take the time to reflect on the positive things in their life and take them for granted. We should take the depiction of life during the depression to motivate us to be more appreciative of our lives.

We expounded on the idea that these bachelors enjoyed their comfort only at the expense of the women’s hardships, and this was a major connection between both stories. We also highlighted the narrator as another major link between the stories since he had the opportunity of witnessing both contrasting sides of life. Literary Critic Karen Weyler points out that this narrator only mimics the attitudes and moods of the both the bachelors and maids, but she never fully expands on why this is the case. I believe the narrator copies their attitudes and moods so that he reveals his empathy for the working women. This is shown by the satiric view of the first story and the seriousness of the second story

Although he may have copied the attitudes of the bachelors, the ironic and satiric view of the bachelor is what hints at his beginning sympathy for the women. This view explains the relation of the narrator’s mind to the serious issues beyond the merriment of these bachelors. After a night of perpetual drinking, all the bachelors seem to be in a state of happiness and good feeling. The narrator finds it natural to only introduce a serious concept of pain just when these bachelors are in their happiest state, unable to feel pain because they are in the farthest possible emotion from pain. He copies the attitudes of the typical bachelor who cannot “suffer himself to be imposed on monkish tales of pain and troubles,” but raises the important issue because his heart and mind definitely remember such a thing as pain, even though it is in light of the bachelor’s attitudes (1264). He is struck by this one important idea of pain that hits his mind and really does not concern the Templars or the bachelors, but the rest of the world outside the bachelors, which, in this period, could be those people who suffer in the society. The narrator may not have directed this idea immediately towards working women but he surely flashes his mind on those who are pain for suffering. The narrator digresses to such an important issue just before the beginning of his journey, furthering the notion that he has thought about the possibility of pain contrary to what the bachelors think. But it becomes clear who he is sympathetic towards working women.

During the second story, the narrator can engage himself by viewing and empathizing with the pain he has reflected on and he can sense that actual magnitude of suffering is enough to experience what these working women experience, “tearing pain…since his “cheeks are white and frozen,” similar to the moods and attitudes of the maids. (1271). Now the narrator is beginning to see the cruel example of suffering and is partially experiencing the suffering of these women through his pale cheeks. He deeply feels their tragic pain from the unrelenting machines to the point he himself is speechless at the sight of them, just observing their pallid faces in their different assignments. Many times, the narrator become concerned and confused by the horrible, negative images of these women next to the unrelenting machines, to the extent that he stammers this question: “why makes these girls so sheet white?” and this answer “These are all maids” (1274, 1278), all filling him with the same miserable emotion and empathy for their state of depression, which he mimics. He is overwhelmed by their suffering and his representation of their frozen looks makes him empathize greatly with them.

Both the young girls in Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” and Chaplin in the silent film “Modern Times” are similarly effected by their work in factories. In the short story the girls work long hours in the paper mill, producing countless amounts of blank paper. These girls are consumed by their factory work. The narrator describes them as, “blank-looking girls, with blank, white folders in their blank hands, all blankly folding blank paper.” (1270) The constant use of the word “blank” emphasizes the fact that the women working at the mill do not just have jobs, but a way of life, in which they are totally consumed by their duties. The narrator  then describes the physical appearance of one girl as a, ” face pale with work and blue cold” (1270) and later reports that these young women are, “young and fair” as well as, “ruled and wrinkled” (1271). The use of the words “wrinkled” and “ruled” are especially harsh since, these are usually not adjectives we think of using when mentioning young, unwed girls.  Such detail given by the narrator illustrates how these workers are completly absorbed in the technology, loosing their individuality and substance. As they are now just empty human beings.

Similarly, Chaplin in the silent film is consumed by his factory job. He works on an assembly line, moving at a very fast pace, screwing bolts into small pieces of machinery probably used to create one large machine later in the process. Comparably, Chaplin, liked the young girls at the mill, works very long hours doing one type of duty. Continuously doing the same work consumes his life and he begins to do the same arm motions done in his work everywhere he goes, leading to his nervous breakdown and  causing the factory to be in complete disarray and chaos. Chaplin physically cannot stop himself.

Although Chaplin’s situation changes later in the film, at the time he and the young girls in the paper mill, are trapped in technology. Both have been broken down from human beings with thoughts and personality to now empty objects, as Chaplin and the factory workers act like the machines they operate. Interestingly, both the young girls and Chaplain fall victim to a factory system that is meant to make life easier.