Edition note: An independent English rewriting for viewers of Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film Modern Times. It preserves the Chinese argument while reorganizing its sequence for an English-language essay. Full-film spoilers.
Released from the hospital into unemployment, the Tramp wanders into a demonstration because he picks up a warning flag dropped by a truck. Police see a man holding a red flag before a crowd and identify a leader. His intention is irrelevant to the available visual category.
Accidentally useful during an attempted breakout, he receives a comfortable cell and stable meals. When pardoned, he asks to remain. The joke exposes an economic comparison: confinement supplies food, bed, and schedule; freedom supplies no job, shelter, or guarantee of tomorrow.
A person can reasonably prefer a place that removes agency when the outside offers agency without material capacity.
A shipyard job ends when he follows an instruction and releases an unfinished vessel. A restaurant arrest is deliberately sought after a meal he cannot pay for. A department-store security job ends after hungry former coworkers break in and explain, “We are not burglars—we’re hungry.”
The film repeatedly lets institutional classification arrive before motive: leader, thief, incompetent worker, guard asleep on duty. Each label captures an event and misses the life producing it.
When the old plant reopens, the Tramp becomes a mechanic’s assistant. A worker is trapped inside machinery during lunch, and the Tramp feeds him by hand. The scene mirrors the automatic feeding machine: the same technical problem, now answered as care by one person for another.
Then a strike closes the plant. An accidentally kicked brick hits a police officer, and the Tramp returns to custody.
Chaplin gives the Tramp almost no past, family, or stable profession. His movement links workers, prisoners, unemployed marchers, hungry thieves, supervisors, police, and shop staff. He is less a conventional protagonist than a thread passing through the social diagram named by the title.
Nearly everyone calculates how to reach tomorrow. The former workers steal food. The Tramp seeks jail. The unemployed crowd pursues work. Choice remains, but its field is narrowed until decisions concern survival rather than a life one can claim.
The Tramp’s misadventures are not random bad luck. They reveal a society that processes people rapidly because it has no time to ask what any particular person meant to do.
版本说明：中文原作；简体与繁体同页切换。片名、人名与关键情节已按查理·卓别林一九三六年《摩登时代》上映版校订。全片剧透。
流浪汉离开医院时，工厂已经关门。他很快会经过街头、监狱、船厂、餐馆、百货公司，再回到工厂。看上去是一连串倒霉事，其实每个地方都在重复同一个动作：先给一个人归类，再决定怎样处理他，至于他为什么站在那里，往往来不及问。
一辆卡车掉下一面红色警示旗。他捡起来追在后面，想把旗还回去；恰好一支游行队伍从街角转出来，跟在他身后。警察只看见一个举旗的人走在最前面，于是把“领头者”抓走。
这个误会并不只是巧合。眼前的画面符合一种现成分类，分类便替询问省下了时间。后来他还会被叫作犯人、偷窃者、不合格的工人、失职的守卫。每个称呼都抓住了一件发生过的事，也都漏掉了让那件事发生的生活。
他在监狱里意外阻止了一次越狱，得到单独牢房、稳定饭食和看报的优待。狱长宣布特赦时，他没有欢呼，反而请求留下。
这是全片最不轻松的笑话。监狱拿走自由，却给出床、屋顶、饭和明天的安排；外面把自由还给他，却不给工作和住处。一个已经撑不住的人宁可不再作决定，并不证明他天生喜欢受管束，只说明没有条件的自由，有时比围墙更难活。
丢掉船厂工作以后，他进餐馆吃了一顿付不起的饭，主动请警察抓自己。后来做百货公司夜班守卫，又遇见三个闯进来的前工友。对商店来说，他们是贼；其中一个摘下面罩，说出的却是：“我们不是贼，我们只是饿了。”
这句话没有让行为消失，却改变了我们看行为的位置。偷东西仍然是偷东西，但如果只留下这个名字，饥饿就被从事件里删掉了。制度处理的是已经发生的动作，电影则把动作后面那个人重新放回来。
船厂、百货公司和重新开工的工厂都短暂接纳过他，也都很快把他送走。最温柔的一幕反而发生在机器里：机械师被卡进齿轮，到了午饭时间，流浪汉一口一口喂他。第一篇里的自动喂食机想让吃饭服从生产；这里同一个动作，因为是一个人照顾另一个人，才重新有了人的意思。
可工厂随即罢工。一块被他无意踢飞的砖砸中警察，他再次被捕。不是他拒绝安定，而是每个位置都只在需要他的那一刻向他打开。
卓别林没有给流浪汉过去、家庭和固定职业。他像一根线，穿过工人、犯人、失业者、饥饿的人和执行规则的人，让这些原本分散的生活出现在同一部电影里。
他们共同计算的不是怎样成为自己，而是怎样撑到明天。 有人去偷，有人排队等工作，他则想回监狱。影片没有嘲笑这些答案；它追问的是，当全部力气都用来换取下一顿饭和下一张床，一个人还剩多少余地去想自己想过怎样的生活。第三篇里的女孩，会第一次把另一种愿望说出口。
本文所依据的版本为一九三六年查理·卓别林自编自导自演版。