The Godfather
Mario Puzo’s
Mario Puzo
Born October 15, 1920.
Grew up in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.
Son of Italian Immigrants.
Wrote The Godfather, it turned into three award winning
movies.
Francis Ford Coppola directed all three movies, Puzo helped
with the screen play, and the script.
The Godfather became an instant classic when it was published.
Characters
Vito Corleone- The Don of the Family.
Michael Corleone- War hero, comes back and decides to join the family
business since Vito was shot.
Sonny Corleone- Hot head of the family. Violence is his answer to a lot
of things. He was going to be the one who was going to take over the
family.
Tom Hagen- Consiglierie or chief advisor of the family. He is their
lawyer also, he is very smart and sticks with the family the entire time.
Peter Clemenza- An associate to the family, he is a very jolly man, fat,
but he does get the work done for the family.
Characters cont.
Tessio- An associate that is valuable to the family. He
knows a lot of people that can get things done. He is not a
murderer, but he does know how to get anyone killed and
get away with the murder.
Luca Brasi- Enforcer of the the family. He is a slow person,
but he is very violent. Many stories of him are told, and
they make you cringe when you hear them.
Kay Adams- Michaels girlfriend and wife. She is an
American girl that sticks with Michael the entire way.
The Protagonist
Protagonist: The principal character in a literary work (as a
drama or story).
The protagonists of the story would be Vito, and Michael
Corleone.
Vito is the Don of the Corleone family. He is the protagonist
because he doesn’t want violence between the five families.
Michael is the other protagonist of the story because he doesn’t
want violence to his family, and he starts in the family business
because his father was shot. When Vito retired, Michael took the
reigns of the family.
The Antagonist
Antagonist: One that contends or opposes one another.
The antagonists of the story is Virgil Sollozzo, and the heads of
the five families.
Sollozzo is a leading drug smuggler for the tattaglia family from
Brooklyn. He is also the lead cause of Vito Corleone being shot
for not excepting the deal of going into narcotics.
The heads of the five families are the other antagonists because
they are the ones who gunned down Sonny Corleone, and shot
Vito.
Favorite characters
Sonny Corleone is my favorite character because he can be a
family man at one time, and a cold hearted murderer in a split
second.
He protects the family at all cost and he literally died doing that.
He was originally the one to take over the the family business
after the Don retired, but then he was shot hundreds of times.
He is a “Hot Headed” person, and that lead to his demise.
He beat up Carlo Rizzi, and he gave him a good beating. Sonny is
an incredibly tough person.
Least favorite character
My least favorite character of the book would be Carlo Rizzi.
Carlo is the husband of Connie Corleone. He was a mooch off of
the family, and he was horrible to Connie.
He is the reason why Sonny died because he didn’t want to get
killed for slapping Connie around again.
He wanted to be in the family business, but Vito didn’t want him
apart of it since it was Connie’s husband.
He is, in my opinion, an un-likeable person.
Plot Summary- Exposition
The Corleone family is one of the most powerful families in
New York.
Virgil Solozzo wants to make a deal with the Don about
going into the drug business.
The Don refuses and Virgil is outraged by it. Solozzo orders
the Don to be killed.
Solozzo kidnaps Tom Hagen so he can convince Sonny to
go into the drug business.
Rising Action
While Michael is acting as a guard in the hospital Vito
Corleone is in, Solozzos men try going inside to finish off
the Don.
Captain McCluskey hits Michael across the face.
Michael is outraged and plots to take care of Solozzo and
McCluskey.
Climax
Michael Corleone plots with Sonny and Hagen to
assassinate Solozzo, and McCluskey.
They arrange a meeting with just Michael so they won’t
bother the family anymore.
The meeting is held in Tattaglia’s area (Brooklyn).
Michael kills Solozzo and McCluskey. His family hides him
in the old country of Sicily to wait out the storm at home.
Resolution
The Don gets out of the hospital and finds out Sonny is
killed, and Michael is hiding in Sicily.
When the Don’s strength is back, he arranges a meeting
with the heads of the families so Michael can come home.
Michael gets back and takes the reigns of the family. As he
takes the reigns he sends Fredo down to Vegas to learn the
hotel and gambling business
Michael later moves the family down there to prosper in
the business after Mo green is ordered to get killed.
Setting
The setting of the book is in 1940’s New York and Las
Vegas.
The time period is important because that’s when Mafia’s
were well known and owned most businesses.
New York was where Staten Island is. Italian immigrants
went through there. Mafias reign most in New York.
Themes
“It’s business, not personal”- The men in the mafia call
themselves business men for what they do in their lives. They
want to hide the fact to the public that they are violent people.
The different worlds of men and women- Vito talks about that
women, and men live in completely different realms. Men should
never talk about their business to women.
The conflict between respect and legitimacy- the idea of
legitimacy in the mafia world would be respected by law, and the
public. Don Corleone would rather have respect out of fear, and
business. Michael would rather have legitimacy than respect.
Themes Continued and Rating
The conflict between respect and legitimacy- the idea of
legitimacy in the mafia world would be respected by law,
and the public. Don Corleone would rather have respect
out of fear, and business. Michael would rather have
legitimacy than respect.
I rate this book at a 9. I say this because it’s a really
interesting read, but it was really long. The different stories
it talked about made it really interesting. I loved reading
the book, and I am glad I got to read it for the assignment.
Murder
Murder- The Godfather is full of this horrible act. People
that have committed this crime do it for many reason.
Revenge, money, for fun, gang initiation, etc.
Murder has been apart of the mafia since its beginning in
Sicily, Italy.
The most famous gangsters are notorious for their blood
lust such as Al “Scarface” Capone, Ignazio Saietta, Frankie
Yale, Giuseppe Masseria, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and oh
so much more.
Murder cont.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZNCh474Q54
In this video, as you could see from some examples that there are
murders that take place that are for the sake of money.
In 2008 Utah had thirty-nine murders. It’s better than 2007
which had fifty eight murders.
The total amount of murder in 2009 in the United States, was
16,204.
The total amounts of murders ranks the United States 24 in the
world of the murder rate. Making forty of every thousand people
were murdered in 2009.
My Song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw3H7dS64-A
I chose this song because of the reference of murder in it.
50 cent displays a wonderful way of the murderers that are
caught, and thrown in jail.
It’s a terrible crime that people actually commit. So don’t do
it!
Prevention
A good way to avoid attacks like this is to increase home
security. Install alarms, when home have it on, and away
from the house make sure you turn it on before you leave.
Murders do happen by breaking into homes, so make sure
to have an alarm, and to have the police department
number to call incase of emergency.
Information from www.disastercenter.com
Bibliography
Videos from www.youtube.com
Prevention information from www.disastercenter.com and
also from cops.usdoj.gov
Utah statistics from disastercenter.com/crime/utcrime
Information on the mafia from my book Organized Crime:
An Inside Guide At the World’s Most Successful Industry.
U.S statistics from nationmaster.com