The Godfather

When Vito Andolini is 12 years old, his father is killed after murdering the local Mafia chief in the town of Corleone, Sicily. After his father is killed, Vito is sent to America to keep him safe. Upon arriving in the United States, he changes his last name to Corleone after his village. As the novel says, “[I]t was one of the few gestures of sentiment he was ever to make” (255). Decades later, Vito makes the decision to kill an adversary, recognizing that he is taking a path outside of society that will lead to what he sees as his destiny.

The reader only sees the Don from an outside perspective once, while at the hospital visiting Genco Abbandando. The attending physician, Dr. Kennedy, characterizes Don Corleone as a “short, heavy man dressed in an awkwardly fitted tuxedo” (50). But it is clear throughout the novel that, whatever the Don’s actual physical characteristics may be, his presence is commanding. When Michael assumes power in the family, he begins to resemble the Don: “Michael was not tall or heavily built but his presence seemed to radiate danger. In that moment, he was a reincarnation of Don Corleone himself” (172).

When the novel begins, Don Corleone is at the height of his power. He is one of the leading Mafia dons in the United States, and much of that power is derived from an intricate network of political and legal allies. He understands that this is where power truly lies, telling Sonny, “Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks” (290). His method of distributing favors and collecting debts has been skillfully deployed over many years. He is a highly intelligent man whom the heads of the other Mafia families see as a genius strategist.

Tom Hagen is the unofficial adopted son of the Corleone family. His parents die when he is 12, and Sonny finds him homeless on the streets. Sonny brings Tom home, and Tom stays with the family from then on. He greatly admires Don Corleone as a father figure and also as a brilliant businessman and strategist. Tom also develops a deep understanding of Sicilian culture, comprehending the Don’s actions and decisions as perhaps no one else does. When he does not understand, Tom “puts on [his] Sicilian hat,” viewing the Don’s decisions and actions through the lens of Sicilian culture and customs.

When the story opens, Tom is 35 years old, “a tall crew-cut man, very slender, very ordinary-looking” (58). Tom trains as a lawyer, and, upon the death of Genco Abbandando, becomes Don Vito Corleone’s consigliere, his right-hand man and a figure of great importance in a Mafia family. The fact that Tom is not Sicilian goes against every tradition for this position and even leads to some loss of respect for the Don from other families. The fact that Don Corleone nevertheless makes Tom his consigliere shows how much he values Tom’s insight and intelligence. In some ways, Tom is the Don’s closest son, the one who understands him and his business the best, but Tom will always be an outsider because of his German-Irish heritage.

Tom’s position as consigliere also dictates that he act as a middleman between the Don and the rest of the family. Instructions come from the Don to him, and then he distributes these instructions. In this way, the Don is legally removed from any liability. However, another effect of this business model is that Tom often faces the emotions and reactions of those he talks to, as they cannot direct their responses to the Don. Tom is, above all, loyal and devoted to Don Vito Corleone. After the death of the Don, he transfers that loyalty to Michael, in whom he sees the Don, and whom he respects for that reason.

Kay Adams is Michael’s girlfriend and later wife in The Godfather. She and Michael meet at Dartmouth College, where she gets a degree in education. Kay is from New Hampshire, and her parents are affluent, though not as wealthy as the Corleone family. Kay is aware of her upper class Protestant social position and has a wry sense of humor about the differences between her family and Michael’s. But she does not realize the truth of his family’s business until the wedding at the novel’s start. Even then, she views the business with incredulity and amazement but does not take it as seriously as she should, finding it hard to believe that Michael’s father could really be what the papers seem to say he is.

At the beginning of the novel, it seems clear that Michael is dating Kay because she is the exact opposite of the woman that his family would have chosen for him. The Sicilian Corleone family and friends are not impressed with Kay, whom they see unfavorably as an “American” girl: “She was too thin, she was too fair, her face was too sharply intelligent for a woman, her manner too free for a maiden” (12). But Kay also represents the America that Michael is trying to be a part of when he speaks of how their children will be more like Kay than like him, and that they will follow in her family’s footsteps rather than his. To Michael, Kay represents the perfect picture of American life. In her, he sees a way to raise his family’s fortunes by legitimizing the business, making themselves more American. As he says, “I want them to be influenced by you. I want them to grow up to be All-American kids, real All-America, the whole works. Maybe they or their grandchildren will go into politics” (484).

In the end, instead of raising her children outside of the Corleone family and into mainstream American culture, Kay is drawn into the family culture. She converts to Catholicism, which Michael does not like because he sees the Protestant religion as “more American.” She emulates Carmella Corleone through her acceptance of Michael’s assertion that he will never talk about the business with her, and that they will never be equal partners in everything. She meets Michael’s plane whenever he returns from business but never talks about that business with him. She even begins going to mass daily to pray for Michael, just as Carmella always prays for the Don, and has found a way to compartmentalize her inner conflict about the Corleone family business. By the end of the book, Kay has been completely absorbed into the Corleone family.