Between 1896 and 1899, over a hundred thousand American gold prospectors made their way to Klondike, in the Canadian territory of the Yukon. This was the gold rush. Their epic journey began with a harrowing journey to the North from coastal cities such as Victoria, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. Once arrived, the adventurers had to brave the dreaded Chilkoot pass. This mountain pass was a steep climb, rising to over a thousand metres at its highest point. Any aspiring prospector was required to bring at least one ton of supplies – this was the requirement set by the North-Western mounted police. A prospector had to bring enough to live off for a year, and so it was that thousands of men loaded with heavy burdens trudged along a trail thirty-three kilometres in length, choked with ice and snow, beset by the constant threat of avalanches, drowning, sickness and exhaustion. They would have to make the trip many times to bring their families with them, and some would tread this path thirty or forty times. Once they had arrived in Klondike it was already too late for the gold seekers to get to work, for summers are short in the north. So every man had to build himself a home to ride out the winter, enduring seven months of cold, darkness, sickness and isolation. Some were lucky enough to find food, but most found themselves struggling every day to survive, and their very existence became a weariness.
Charlie Chaplin’s childhood was spent in misery and want. He was sent to a home for poor children at the age of seven. By the time he had left it, his mother had been committed to an asylum, and his father had died of alcoholism. Young Charles was soon left to fend for himself, and face the hostile world alone. His poetic, optimistic nature allowed him to gild his childhood through the character of the Tramp, the clownish vagabond. Instantly recognisable by his oversized trousers, his tight coat, tiny bowler hat, abnormally large shoes, his cane, and of course his post-stamp moustache, the Tramp became the most famous and beloved jokester in the history of cinema. After his role in The Kid, the Tramp appeared as a gold prospector in Klondike. In The Gold Rush, the Tramp searches for shelter to protect him from the biting cold. Caught in a snowstorm, he takes refuge in the isolated cabin of Black Larsen, a dangerous outlaw who refuses to take him in. Another prospector called Big Jim enters the scene, and the three force an uneasy truce. The two prospectors are able to stay in the cabin, though they are tormented by hunger. Charlie Chaplin portrays the misery of famine with humour; the starving protagonists eat the soles of their shoes, suffer grotesque hallucinations and are tempted to eat one another. And yet even in this most dire of situations, there is laughter. The gold rush symbolises a struggle that is universal; that of the downtrodden in search of hope, of poor folks willing to do whatever it takes to survive in a hostile world – but with Charlie Chaplin, laughter carried an unspoken truth; laughter was salvation, laughter was cathartic.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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