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PARTISAN REVIEW
characters who lumber orally, who do not flow. In Hawks the theme
is a Freudian one - an explosion of energy and libido against the
rigid ramparts of routine and constraint- but in Chaplin, who did
not grow up rich, as Hawks did, the theme has a much more social
dimension.
In a 1918 article called "What People Laugh At," the key word
Chaplin uses is "dignity." People love to see the early comedies make
fun of cops, he says: "Here were men representing the dignity of the
law, often very pompous themselves, being made ridiculous and un–
dignified ." There is also, he says, "the delight the average person
takes in seeing wealth and luxury in trouble." On the other hand, the
tramp is the man who, "having had something funny happen to him,
refuses to admit that anything out of the way has happened, and at–
tempts to maintain his dignity. .. . All my pictures are built around
the idea of getting me into trouble and so giving me the chance to be
desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentle–
man." (One example is Chaplin's famous drunken solo in
One A.M.,
a routine he had often done on the stage . Instead of doing a rip–
roaring drunk, he tries hilariously to remain in control. "Intoxicated
characters on the stage are almost always 'slightly tipsy' with an at–
tempt at dignity, because theatrical managers have learned that this
attempt at dignity is funny .")
This "dignity," the visual emblem of class and respectability, is
not simply a way of maintaining appearances in a shifting world
where appearance helps determine social position. Directed at the
rich and powerful, it is an instance of what Freud calls the comedy of
"unmasking" - "the method of degrading the dignity of individuals
by directing attention to the frailties which they share with all
humanity, but in particular the dependence of their mental func–
tions on certain bodily needs." Attacking their dignity is a way of
deflating the authority of the law and the snobbery of the rich. But
for the underdog character, the social misfit, this attempt at dignity
is a psychological necessity, an instrument of survival. The tramp
keeps his self-respect even when he gets respect from no one else.
When his kernel of humanity goes unnoticed,
we
notice it, for we
share it.
The advantage of the tramp over his larger and stronger
tormentors is not simply his physical agility but his agility of mind.
In
The Gold Rush
the starving man turns shoe-leather and laces into a
gourmet meal, a triumph of mind over matter, while his companion,
a man of more limited imagination, looks on in disbelief. But when
he
is hungry enough his mind plays tricks on him and turns the
