Machine Within the Machine

Within our society, we have become almost machines in what people consider to be “the machine”. Many of us try to reject the ideas that are put on us by family or even friends but usually at some point we find ourselves succumbing to the expectations of the society, such as working menial jobs or going to school even if we can’t afford it and we further get ourselves into debt when not even a year ago we had to ask if we could use the restroom.

As in his story Bartleby, the Scrivener, Herman Melville seems to cover this topic loosely with the character of Bartleby. Whether the psychology becomes distant from society for whatever reason, he rejects what is expected by his boss, as well as his coworkers. He doesn’t seem to be doing this to make a statement, but either way, it furthers what has been said about people being stuck in the machine.

In his films, Charlie Chaplin used to deal with ideas in society that he felt needed to be dealt with and with a very stiff spine. The movie that most explicitly deals with this topic is Modern Times (1936). The movie itself not only deals with the topic of Communism, but also with the changing times and that we are expected to go with the times. In this scene, The Tramp literally becomes a part of the machine, a statement that Chaplin purposely made representing what people have become, similar to Bartleby and has a nervous breakdown as a result.