Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Godfather, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Crime and Justice
Power
Masculinity and Patriarchy
Family
Loyalty and Betrayal
Summary
Analysis
Carlo Rizzi resents the Corleone Family. Following his marriage to Connie, Don Corleone gave him a small bookmaking operation on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The operation pays the bills, but it is not the lucrative, high-status position Rizzi envisioned he would have. He likens the Don to an out-of-touch “Moustache Pete,” and he takes out his resentment towards the Don by physically abusing Connie.
Carlo’s violent abuse towards Connie represents yet another way that women serve as objects for men’s pleasure in the character’s patriarchal world. In contrast to Johnny Fontane, who builds his identity around sexually conquering virginal girls, Carlo uses Connie as a vent for his frustration towards her Family.
Themes
One morning, a now-pregnant Connie tells Carlo that she is going to visit her father in Long Beach, where he is still recuperating. Carlo asks her if Sonny is still in charge, and when she feigns ignorance on the matter, he viciously slaps her several times on the face. Connie’s face is now so swollen that she decides against visiting the Don. “Slapping the spoiled little bitch around” makes Carlo feel good because it alleviates “some of the frustration he felt at being treated so badly by the Corleones.” He tells her he will not be home until late and leaves the apartment.
The Corleone Family’s vast wealth makes it a magnet for shady individuals wishing to take some of that wealth for themselves. Puzo emphasizes that Carlo did not marry Connie because he loved her, but that he instead married her Family, so to speak, with the hopes of earning a prestigious positon in the Family rackets. When Don Corleone gives him a meager bookmaking operation instead, Carlo beats Connie because he cannot attack the Don directly.
Themes
Carlo is able to beat Connie with relative impunity because Vito and Mama Corleone vow they will not interfere in their children’s marriages. Shortly after the wedding, Connie told her parents how Carlo squandered all of their wedding money and that he beats her relentlessly. Although Connie had always been Don Corleone’s favorite child, he exclaims that “she is my daughter […] but now she belongs to her husband.” He instructs Connie to “go home and learn how to behave so that he will not beat you.”
Connie is the victim of two distinct strains of patriarchy. As a woman, she is unable to have a role in her father’s crime business and must instead rely on her husband for support. When Carlo abuses her, Connie receives no protection from her parents because they subscribe to a patriarchal version of family relations that makes a wife her husband’s property, with which he can do as he chooses.
Themes
Sonny Corleone, however, does not share his father’s opinion about Connie’s marriage to Carlo. Despite his temper and proclivity towards violence, Sonny abhors violence against women. One day, following a visit to his mistress Lucy Mancini’s apartment, Sonny visits Connie after Carlo goes to work. When Connie answers the door showing the bruises and swelling from Carlo’s latest beating, Sonny flies into a murderous rage. Connie insists “it was [her] fault” and convinces Sonny to come inside the apartment. Sonny promises her that he “won’t make [her] kid an orphan before he’s born” (i.e., he won’t kill Carlo) and leaves.
Sonny is protective over Connie in a way that Don Corleone is not. Yet Sonny’s distaste for violence against women stems not from a belief that women are his equal, but from a patriarchal notion that frames men as natural protectors of women. Connie herself does not embrace Sonny’s intervention in her marriage because she knows it will only inspire Carlo to beat her more.
Themes
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It is a Sunday and Carlo sits in his bookmaking office alongside his associates, Sally Rags and Coach. He meticulously jots down the odds for various sports bets in his record notebooks in order to report the records to Tom Hagen. After he jots down the bets, Carlos joins Sally Rags and Coach on the building’s outside stoop, where he brags about abusing Connie. Suddenly, Sonny pulls up his car and leaps from the driver’s seat. He grabs Carlo and beats him with his fists. Carlo clings to the stoop railing, refusing to fight back.
That Carlo spends Sundays (a traditional day of rest and family time) at his bookmaking office speaks to his general indifference to his pregnant wife, Connie. By arriving and attacking Carlo on a Sunday, Sonny tries to reestablish (albeit violently) the importance of family togetherness in his sister’s marriage by forcing Carlo to treat her better.
Themes
Carlo responds to Sonny’s attack with “complete subjugation” because he knows that Sonny will not kill him, lest he anger Don Corleone. “You ever beat up my sister again I’ll kill you,” Sonny warns before leaving Carlo a bloody pulp on the stoop. Sally Rags reports the incident to Rocco Lampone, who then reports it to Clemenza. The caporegime curses “that goddamn Sonny and his temper” and reports the incident to Tom Hagen. The Consigliere worries that the Corleone Family’s enemies might learn of Sonny’s location, so he orders Clemenza to send bodyguards to locate him. Sonny eventually arrives home safely.
This incident embodies the way that blood family and crime Family are bound inextricably together in the Corleone’s’ world. Carlo is both a member of the family and an employee of the Family. As such, Sonny and Don Corleone are his “bosses.” In beating Carlo, however, Sonny acts like a brother, not an employer, yet his insistence on resolving a family dispute make him vulnerable to retaliation from his crime Family’s enemies.
Themes
