A Study Guide for Mario Puzo's "The Godfather"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535836876

Book preview

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The Godfather

Mario Puzo

1969

Introduction

As soon as it was published in 1969, Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather began setting sales records, becoming the fastest selling book up to its time. Its enormous popularity increased in 1972 when Francis Ford Coppola's movie version was released. The movie won several Academy Awards, including one for Coppola and Puzo's script adaptation of his novel. It is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time and is frequently cited by critics as one of the greatest American movies ever made. It has spawned two highly-respected sequels, both co-scripted by Puzo. The novel has consistently stayed in print and has sold over 21 million copies worldwide.

The story revolves around Vito Corleone, a leader of organized crime in the 1940s. He is a man who rules with quiet persuasion, asking those who wish favors from him for their loyalty and dealing mercilessly with those who cross him. When other criminals try to involve his organization in the drug trade, Corleone resists and the shield of power that he has built around his family is threatened. The aged crime lord must defend his family and pass control of his empire to one of his three sons.

This book helped define how the world views organized crime in America, framing the aspects of greed and violence that are inherent in the underworld with an emphasis on family, respect, and honor. The character of Vito Corleone, the Godfather, has been compared to Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield as an archetype, a personality so true to the American experience that, though fictional, he seems familiar to everyone. Far beyond being just another crime novel, The Godfather relates to all stories of immigrant families who are trying, over the course of generations, to fit into the mainstream of American life.

Author Biography

It is no coincidence that The Godfather turned out to be a bestseller: Mario Puzo, its author, planned from first to last that the book would be popular and make him money. Puzo was born October 15, 1920, to a family of Italian immigrants, and he spent his childhood in the Italian ghetto of New York called Hell's Kitchen. He was a young boy when he decided to be a writer, but he was discouraged in this by the family's impoverished circumstances. His mother aspired for him to work for the railroad, like his father and brother.

The tension between the life of a writer that Puzo wanted to lead and the traditional working class life that his family was steering him toward was broken by America's entry into World War II in 1941. During the war, stationed in Europe, he lived the life of freedom for a while, drinking and gambling and spending money freely on girls. While in the army, he married Erika Lina Broske. He returned to civilian life five years later and settled into a civil service job. He still wrote short stories and published them once in a while.

Puzo's first novel, The Dark Arena, was published in 1955, ten years after the war ended. It was a personal story, based on his experiences during the war. The novel gained him some critical acclaim—for example, Maxwell Geismer noted in the Saturday Review that