Charlie Chaplin in the film, Modern Times, experiences the pressure of dealing with time and it’s manifestations while working on an assembly line in a factory. While at work, Charlie’s character screws loose bolts onto the pieces of metal that come his way, and the man behind them fastens them tight before they disappear into the machinery behind them. The pair, Charlie and his co-worker, seems to struggle to get along at the beginning, as the timing of their job has to be down to the second in order to work at the pace of the machine. Already, the forced teamwork with the machinery and emphasis of moving at the pace of the factory’s clock commences the dehumanizing portrayal of the assembly line shown in the scene. Not only does the machine the humans must work with provide a difficult pace to keep up with, but this pace in turn strains the human relationships on the line. As Charlie continues to try and work at the pace of the machine, the technology and the factory’s time schedule continue to get the better of him.

After being introduced to the chaotic mash of humans and machines attempting to work in harmony, viewers then experience an attempt by the factory’s owners to save time and further streamline their workers with machines. Chaplin’s character winds up strapped into a “feeding machine” designed to allow workers to eat while continuing to work, therefore eliminating the need for a lunch break. In the owner’s perspective, this invention means more products created and therefore more revenue potential. However, for the viewer, it is possible to analyze the scene as another example in the negative impact time and technology combined has on humanity. Taking away Chaplin’s character’s ability to sit and enjoy his lunch, and actually placing him within a machine, creates a humanesque being, all at once more machine than person. The moviemakers are sure to highlight the “feeding machine” in as much of a negative way as the audience would see it, and, in a ridiculously hilarious way, the machine fails to work. Beaten by the “feeding machine”, Chaplin is left at the end of the scene exhausted and wrung out by his experience within the interworking of the factory experiment. The assembly, however, must continue to operate as there is still time to work left in the day, and the clock, the ever present manifestation of technology, forces the workers back on the factory floor.

After experiencing the “feeding machine”, Chaplin’s character returns to work on the assembly line and renews his efforts at his station. The manger comes up to reprimand him for working too slowly, again reinforcing the ideal that the clock is running the work day, and reminding the audience that Chaplin’s character, and each individual worker, makes up one cog of the machine that is the assembly line. The verbal abuse impacts him, and the he begins to work faster and with more exact, almost inhuman, precision than he has ever done before. The coworker that works behind Chaplin’s character notices the shift from a human worker to a worker slowly being absorbed by the machinery around them, and calls out, “He’s crazy!” The dehumanizing force of the time crunch and technology overload of his assembly line work overcomes Chaplin’s character, and in a swift motion, he falls onto the conveyor belt and goes completely inside of the machine. The cogs and the bolts surround him and turn as he glides through the underbelly of the factory, literally swallowed whole by the giant that is industry. This scene shows the way that the technology of the world can envelop the people inside of it, as Chaplin was by the factory, and make them so accustomed to the technology they use, and the time constraints they are placed under, that they become less human, losing the individualistic moral traits that make them people.