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Chaplin used the decor of the film to provide an essential part of its atmosphere. The slum setting of Easy Street (1917), for example, not only adds incalculably to the effect of the theme of the film, but points its satire and its purpose in a way new, not only to Chaplin's work, but to American film-making generally.
The comedy types selected in the Essanay series — the Tough, the Policeman, the Young Girl, Charlie the Tramp — take on a deeper significance. They remain types in so far as they present the basic pattern of the film — Charlie the focal point of disturbance, continually harassed by power (The Tough) and authority (The Policeman), and continually transported into a world of delight and frustration because of his unrequited love for the Young Girl. But in the Mutual Series, both Charlie and the Girl acquire more complex personalities; and the Tough and the Policeman become symbols of forces greater than themselves.
Charlie's early malice and vivacity have now become satire, and indomitable optimism. Increasingly, he is the wistful, heart-catching clown, the hungry child pressing his nose against the pastrycook's window, the tramp forever lonely and alone, at odds with society. The Young Girl is no longer just beauty in distress, but a gentle and compassionate girl, the centre of Charlie's adventures and aspirations, who is regretfully unable to return his chivalric devotion.
As Charlie and the Girl acquire personality, and Charlie's absurd misadventures begin to take on a universal significance, the Tough and the Policeman are forced into new positions. Increasingly, as the Mutual films develop, they become symbols and agents of the avenging Fate predestined to pursue one end — the annihilation of Charlie.
Another interesting factor is by this time emerging. Chaplin had already made over fifty short films. The fundamental theme, common to them all, is the projection of his own childhood. His symbols are obvious — Charlie himself, lonely, outcast, tormented and unconquerable; Edna Purviance, the Young Girl — at once his mother, and all the unrealized and unattainable desires of childhood and adolescence; the Tough and the Policeman — the relentless forces of power and law and authority that shadowed those early years. The satire of these early films is the almost unconscious judgment of the adult Chaplin upon the cruelties he suffered in his youth.
Chaplin was now well away. His projection of his darkest hours was given in comedy so pointed and so ludicrous that great gales of laughter convulsed the whole world because of it. Charlie's personal idiosyncracies, his hilarious misadventures, the gallant battles he waged against impossible odds aroused great mirth; his wistfulness, his loneliness, the endless frustration of his loves and hopes and ambitions