The presumed universality of Chaplin's film persona, which Robinson emphasizes, has long been a component of the conversation around Chaplin's films, and it was rooted in part in persistent links between Chaplin's Tramp and the common man. Most critics and reviewers of that film affirm Chaplin's view that granting the tramp a voice would transform him into another person; they suggest that when Chaplin delivers a speech at the end of the film, he steps out of his film persona and speaks in his own voice.[3] Critics have offered a variety of explanations for Chaplin's reluctance to embrace sound technology. A great deal of critical conversation surrounding the films of Charlie Chaplin has focused on Chaplin's reluctance to move from the silent film technology of the 1910s and 1920s to the talkies of the 1930s. Against hagiographic treatments of Chaplin's films and career as well as laudatory assessments of Chaplin's representation of the everyman among contemporary critics, it is important, I believe, to acknowledge the abiding association between Chaplin's Tramp and the little man, and the ways in which that association is informed by the profoundly denigrating mainstream conception of the common person during his era. [Extracted from the article]