Summary
The film begins with a title card that reads, "A picture with a smile—and perhaps, a tear." We see a woman holding a baby leaving a charity hospital, going out into the world evidently without resources or a husband to help her. We then see a brief image of Jesus Christ carrying the cross on his back. Alone in the park, the woman wonders what to do next.
We see the baby's father, at home, looking at a photo of the woman. He is a painter, showing his work to a buyer. After accidentally dropping the photograph of the woman into the roaring fireplace, he picks it up and then throws it back, deciding to let it burn.
Wandering the streets, the woman sees an empty expensive car and puts the baby in the backseat, kissing it goodbye and leaving it. After she leaves, two gangsters wander up to the car and steal it. When they have taken the car to a back alley, the gangsters get out for a smoke break and hear the baby crying. Holding the baby with one hand and a gun in the other, one of the gangsters leaves the infant in the alley.
The scene shifts and we see The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin's character, wandering down the street just barely escaping some falling rubble and rocks falling out of windows overhead. He opens a small tin that contains a number of cigar and cigarette butts and pulls one out to smoke. He looks down to see the crying baby on the ground, before looking upwards, as though the baby fell from somewhere. He picks up the infant and puts it in a nearby baby carriage with a baby already in it. A mother comes running up and instructs The Tramp to remove his baby, but he does not wish to take it.
When she begins raging, he takes the infant and tries to put it back where he found it, but a police officer comes up behind him. He then tries to give the baby to an old man, running away immediately after handing it over. The old man takes the baby and puts it in the original baby's carriage before running off. When the mother returns to the carriage, she chases The Tramp and begins hitting him with her umbrella, believing that he is the one who left the baby.
The Tramp wanders away with the baby, dropping his cane and sitting down on a sidewalk. He peers down a nearby drain and pulls out a note that is attached to the child that reads, "Please love and care for this orphan child." Looking at the baby, The Tramp realizes he must do as the note says.
Analysis
The opening images of the film depict desperation and vulnerability. A single mother leaves a charity hospital, seemingly without options, and we see a flash of Biblical imagery: Jesus carrying the cross on his back. While director Charlie Chaplin is known for his comedic prowess in the silent era, the context for this story is decidedly bleak and difficult. From the very start, we see that these laughs will not be easily won, and that any humor in the film will emerge from gritty circumstances.
With nowhere else to turn and no resources of her own, the mother leaves the baby in an unoccupied car, hoping that whoever finds him will give him a better life. Ironically enough, as soon as she leaves the baby, it becomes ten times more endangered than it was, as two gangsters steal the car it is in, before leaving it in an alley, completely vulnerable. Within moments of the unmarried mother's departure, the baby is left completely vulnerable and alone in the big bad world, wrapped only in a blanket on the dangerous city streets.
Yet another twist in the baby's fate occurs when The Tramp stumbles upon him. Charlie Chaplin's famous character of The Tramp brings levity to these tragic circumstances almost immediately, as he blithely shuffles down the street. He is a mustachioed adult who has fallen on hard times, yet when he encounters the infant and picks it up, The Tramp looks like a child himself, completely unsure of what to do. The Tramp can hardly take care of himself, as he is already an outcast in society, so the sight of him caring for an orphaned infant is at once amusing, heartbreaking, and moving.
The circumstances that lead The Tramp to keep the child are even more desperate and ridiculous. Moments after picking up the baby, he tries to offload it on a nearby mother with a carriage, before getting sent away. He then tries to put the baby back where he found it, but a nearby police officer disapproves. Suddenly, The Tramp, who was just momentarily trying to do a good deed, is saddled with the burden of the child, and comically unable to unload it onto anyone else. The baby turns into a kind of unwanted boomerang; no matter how often The Tramp tries to rid himself of the burden of adoption, the baby keeps finding its way back. This gives us the sense that The Tramp and the baby are comically fated to one another.
After many slapstick attempts to relieve himself of the burden of childcare, The Tramp finds himself without options and sits down on the sidewalk. It is then that he finds a note from the baby's mother that was meant for the owners of the expensive vehicle in which she left the child. Seeing a mother's earnest plea for someone to look after her child, The Tramp has a change of heart and realizes that it is up to him to make sure the child is safe. No longer resisting the accident, The Tramp accepts his fate as the child's guardian.
