Satire In Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator

It can be difficult to write a successful satire, to criticize the actions of political leaders, while masking that criticism in humor. However, when satires are written effectively, they often have a profound impact. They effectively arrest an audience’s attention while conveying a serious message. In “The Great Dictator”, Charlie Chaplin satirizes the characteristics of totalitarian rulers and regimes by inscribing symbolism in the behaviors of the characters and juxtaposing the behaviors of these characters. In a humorous fashion, Charlie Chaplin symbolizes Hitler’s characteristics through Hynkel’s actions. In the film, Chaplin portrays Hynkel as a person too childish to have as much authority as he does. This is seen in the globe scene, where Hynkel plays around with a balloon that has the appearance of a globe. In this scene, Hynkel is shown bouncing the ball around and generally not showing too much concern for the well-being of the globe. This symbolizes Hynkel’s lack of concern for what he’s dealing with. To him, the world is just a toy for him to experiment with. The nature of this portrayal also leads the audience to draw an analogy between Chaplin and a child. His playing with a toy can be seen as that of a child; this implies that he shares many traits with a child, specifically, the negative ones. Furthermore, at the end of the scene, Chaplin is shown

By using symbolism and humor, he demonstrates the immaturity of Hitler as he rules Germany. Chaplin indicates the lack of concern Hitler has for the consequences to his actions, the artificial and self-serving nature of the diplomatic bond between Hitler and Mussolini, and he shows Hitler’s moral corruptness by subtly hinting on the similarity of Hynkel and the Barber. Chaplin disillusions his audience to the ridiculousness of fascism and voices his opinions to his attentive