The Godfather

Connie is Don Vito Corleone’s youngest child and his only daughter. As a woman, she has no role to play in the Corleone Family’s deeply patriarchal criminal enterprise. Puzo first introduces Connie at the beginning of the novel, during her wedding to Carlo Rizzi. Vito is a doting father towards Connie, but he ends this special treatment after she marries the abusive Carlo, claiming that she is now her husband’s property, not his. Connie’s character embodies the passive role that women play in Puzo’s novel. Rather than being fully realized humans with their own autonomy and ambitions, women instead function as pawns in the male characters’ personal and professional schemes. The alcoholic and gambling-addicted Carlo verbally and physically abuses Connie and cheats on her with other women. Neither Vito nor Mama Corleone will intercede on Connie’s behalf, citing the husband’s supreme authority in marital matters. Only Sonny, who is deeply protective of Connie, punishes Carlo for his abuse. Sonny’s aid, however, leads to his death at the hands of Barzini’s hitmen, demonstrating how Connie’s importance to the story hinges on the ways her existence affects the men around her.