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
After a year of “delicate maneuvering” following Michael’s perfectly executed execution of his enemies, the Corleone Family’s former power is restored. He sells off the Family’s remaining New York real estate and assets and moves the Family to Las Vegas. Peter Clemenza now leads his own New York Family, while Rocco Lampone is now the Corleone’s senior caporegime. Al Neri is in charge of security in the Corleone-owned Vegas hotels, while Tom Hagen stays as the Family’s lawyer. Connie Corleone remarries. Kay converts to Catholicism against Michael’s wishes, as he wanted his children to grow up as American Protestants.
The transition of power from Don Vito Corleone to Don Michael Corleone accompanies a move from east to west that symbolizes the replacement of the old order with the new. By selling off his father’s olive oil business in New York, Michael symbolically sheds his ties to the “Old World” of his father and sets off for the American West, a longtime symbol of opportunity and rebirth in American culture. Michael also enlists new henchmen to serve under his Family in its transition from east to west.
Themes
Kay enjoys the dry Las Vegas climate and Michael buys a legitimate construction business as a front for his criminal activity. Kay and Michael travel back to New York one final time to arrange the packing and shipping of the family’s remaining items. One morning, Kay wakes in the mall and tells Michael she is going to church. “If you’re such a strict Catholic, how come you let the kids duck going to church so much?” Michael asks. Kay becomes irritated and says she will make the kids attend church regularly after they complete the move to their Vegas home.
By settling in with her family in Nevada, Kay appears to embrace the roles and expectations of a Mafia wife. Moreover, her conversion to Catholicism signifies a break not just from her Protestant upbringing, but also from her entire previous life. Much like those converting to Catholicism must be baptized into the faith, by baptizing into Catholicism, Kay is also converting herself into a Corleone.
Themes
Outside of the mall, Kay meets Mama Corleone, who is sitting in a car “dressed in her widow black.” Kay gets into the car, and Mam Corleone makes sure that she skipped breakfast, as those taking Catholic communion must fast beforehand. Kay says “yes” and they drive to the church.
Throughout the novel, cars symbolizes impending death, both literally and symbolically. By entering the car with Mama Corleone, Kay signifies the death of much of her previous identity.
Themes
The inside of the church is cool and dark. Candles faintly illuminate the walls as Kay has a flashback about the moment a year ago when Michael lied to her about killing Connie’s husband, Carlo. She took the children and left him for her parents’ New Hampshire home. Soon after, Tom Hagen visited her, and they spent the afternoon talking. “I expected to see some of the ‘boys’ get out of the car with their machine guns to make me go back,” she coolly told Hagen. The normally cool Hagen became angry.
Kay’s presence in the church inspires a flashback to the moment where she almost broke free from the Corleone Family’s clutches. Despite proclaiming her love for Michael, she maintains her moral compass and views sanctioning murder as beyond the pale.
Themes
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Kay told Tom straight out that she ran away because Michael lied to her about killing Carlo. Tom asked her to consider a possible justification for the murder: “What if Carlo beating up Connie that time was a deliberate plot to get Sonny out in the open,” he asks, “What if Carlo had been paid to help get Sonny killed?” Kay asked why Michael could not forgive Carlo. Tom says that forgiveness was possible in Kay’s world but not in Michael’s.
Tom’s ability to convince Kay that Michael’s murders of Sollozzo and McCluskey were not only justifiable, but also necessary, speaks to the insidious way that the Mafia corrupts most everyone who encounters it. That Tom views forgiveness as “impossible” within the Mafia’s ranks indicates the extent of the mob’s moral rot.
Themes
“He warned you never to ask about business,” Tom says of Michael. He told Kay of Tessio’s betrayal; that Tessio died just as Carlo died “because treachery can’t be forgiven.” Tom explained that forgiving the traitors would have put Michael’s crime Family and his personal family at risk, and Michael was not willing to take that risk. Tom concluded by explaining that Kay and his children were the only people that Michael could never harm. “If you told Michael what I’ve told you today, I’m a dead man,” Tom said. Kay eventually went back to Michael and became a Catholic.
In a deeply symbolic development, Kay responds to Tom’s insistence that forgiveness is impossible in the Mafia by becoming a dedicated Catholic. Asking forgiveness via the Catholic sacrament of confession allows Kay to square her love for Michael with the evil world she knows he embodies. She cannot expect forgiveness from Don Michael Corleone, but she seek forgiveness from God.
Themes
Kay kneels in front of the priest at the altar of Catholic church and receives her Communion wafer. Now that she is “washed clean of sin,” Kay bows her head and prays. She empties her mind of everything and everyone she cares about, except for her husband, and she prays “the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.”
The final scene in the novel places Kay at the feet of a Godfather even more powerful than Michael. She knows that her husband lives a life defined by sin, and, unable to intervene directly in his world, she pleads for mercy from the ethereal world above. Just as Mama Corleone used to go to Mass to pray for her husband’s soul, now Kay does too, marking her full transformation into a true Corleone woman and Mafia wife. Kay’s act marks the final act of martyrdom for the Corleone Family, as she risks her own soul in order to save her husband from eternal damnation.
Themes
