The Godfather

The Godfather

by

Mario Puzo

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Crime and Justice Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Crime and Justice Theme Icon
Power Theme Icon
Masculinity and Patriarchy Theme Icon
Family Theme Icon
Loyalty and Betrayal Theme Icon
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 Theme Icon

The Godfather tells the story of the Corleone Family, in which the primary protagonists are the leaders of a New York-based Mafia organization—first Don Vito Corleone and then his son, Michael Corleone. Perhaps it should be no surprise that in a novel in which the “bad guys” are the focus of the story that the concepts of crime and justice are, at their core, complicated.

The primary source of the complicated nature of crime and justice in the novel is the fact that, as the novel portrays it, there is no pure, simple justice available anywhere. The novel makes this point in its opening scene, when Amerigo Bonasera sits in court and is forced to watch as the two well-off boys who brutally beat his daughter are given only suspended sentences because of their father’s political connections. In fact, in every instance in which the novel portrays what are supposed to be sources of societal justice or even just esteemed industries, they are marked by a distinct lack of justice, merit, or anything redeeming. Lawyers and government officials are corrupt, either in the pocket of crime bosses or seeking to curry favor with even more powerful “legitimate” politicians. The police, underpaid and resentful of that fact, systematically overlook all instances of what they call “clean graft,” in which officers take bribes to look the other way regarding crimes such as gambling and prostitution. Powerful labor leaders take bribes to start strikes, while powerful media titans like Jack Woltz use their positions to follow through on petty grudges or to prey on the less powerful (which in Jack Woltz’s case, means young girls seeking film careers). The novel portrays a world in which there isn’t any justice anywhere, and there is corruption everywhere, just visible behind the veneer of legitimate society. It is in this environment—an environment that causes people like Amerigo Bonasero who “once trusted law and order” to justifiably lose their faith in society—in which crime Families such as the Corleone’s rise and thrive. As Bonasero himself says after the trial lets off the two boys who beat his daughter: “for justice we must go on our knees to Don Corleone.”

The critical point here is that the Corleone Family does dispense a sort of justice. Don Corleone responds to Bonasero’s crisis by sending out two soldiers to beat the boys who attacked Bonasero’s daughter. At another time, Don Corleone frees Johnny Fontane from a legitimately predatory contract by threatening to kill the man who tricked Johnny into signing it. And just when Don Corleone was beginning to form his crime Family, he helped the widow Signora Colombo who had been unfairly (though not illegally) evicted from her apartment by talking to her landlord—a talk that, despite being pleasant, scared the landlord into changing his decision. Put simply: the Don Corleone and the Corleone Family offer help and justice to those who can’t get either from mainstream society.

However, the justice that Corleone offers is not the same as the ideals of the justice available under the law. Where law-based justice is meant to be impartial and universal, applying to everyone, the justice Corleone dispenses is personal and contingent: it is offered only to those who pledge loyalty. When Bonasera does come to Don Corleone to get justice for his daughter, Corleone says about Bonasera’s original choice to seek justice through the courts: “You spurned my friendship. You feared to be in my debt.” Once Bonasera swears loyalty, though, Corleone assures him that “you shall have your justice.” Whereas justice under the law is meant for the betterment of society and as end unto itself, Corleone’s justice is always an exchange, always offered as a favor with an understanding that the favor will be repaid. And, in addition, because the Mafia metes out justice by committing crimes, those who seek out Mafia justice by extension become participants in crime. Those who benefit from Don Corleone’s justice therefore become enmeshed in the Corleone family in two ways: first, because they personally owe Don Corleone for his help; second, because in getting Don Corleone’s help they have become connected to illegal activities that could get them into trouble with the law, and so they are reliant on Don Corleone’s protection from those potential consequences. The Godfather ultimately suggests that although the Corleone Family commits crimes in the service of “justice,” this justice is a tool rather than an end: it is meant to bind people to the Family so that the Family can more easily engage in criminal profit-making, which is the true goal of the Mafia.

And yet there is an additional tension that the novel explores but doesn’t ever entirely resolve. At one point in the novel, Don Corleone says to his fellow mob bosses about the powerbrokers of “legitimate” society: “Who is to say we should obey the laws they make for their own interest and to our hurt?” Corleone and the other mob bosses seem to legitimately believe that all of society is a kind of Mafia, that society is a rigged system set up only to protect and enrich those who are powerful, and that the laws and legitimacy of that society are just fronts designed to make the rigged game less visible and harder to upset. What’s a bit less clear is whether the novel agrees with the crime bosses. The fact that there are essentially no examples of pure or selfless justice occurring in the book, and that every character, ranging from judges to Hollywood moguls, seem to be corrupt and interested only in their own wealth and luxury, does seem to support the crime bosses’ point of view. At the same time, it’s possible to argue that the book shows how the Mafia works to corrupt public institutions—it bribes judges, the police, forces media moguls to pay “protection” against trumped-up labor strikes—such that more idealistic versions of justice become increasingly scarce, which in turn only strengthens the Mafia as their own brand of transactional justice becomes the only readily available justice around.

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Crime and Justice Quotes in The Godfather

Below you will find the important quotes in The Godfather related to the theme of Crime and Justice.
Chapter 1 Quotes

It was part of the Don’s greatness that he profited from everything.

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone, Carlo Rizzi
Related Symbols: Wealth
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

Luca Brasi did not fear the police, he did not fear society, he did not fear God, he did not fear hell, he did not fear or love his fellow man. But he had elected, he had chosen, to fear and love Don Corleone.

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone, Luca Brasi
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:

“I believe in America. America has made my fortune.”

Related Characters: Amerigo Bonasera (speaker), Don Vito Corleone, Jerry Wagner and Kevin Moonan
Related Symbols: Wealth
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone (speaker), Johnny Fontane, Jack Woltz
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

“A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone (speaker), Thomas “Tom” Hagen
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“Even the shooting of your father was business, not personal. You should know that by now.”

Related Characters: Thomas “Tom” Hagen (speaker), Don Vito Corleone, Santino “Sonny” Corleone
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

He was surprised to find himself so secretive with Kay. He loved her, he trusted her, but he would never tell her anything about his father or the Family. She was an outsider.

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone, Michael Corleone, Kay Adams
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

He could use power and monetary favors grudgingly, always alert for treason, always believing that women would betray and desert him, adversaries to be bested. Or he could refuse to hate women and continue to believe in them.

Related Characters: Margot Ashton, Sharon Moore , Virginia “Ginny” Fontane
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

When he became a Don and asked opponents to sit down and reason with him, they understood it was the last chance to resolve an affair without bloodshed and murder.

Related Characters: Peter “Pete” Clemenza, Salvatore “Sal” Tessio, Don Fanucci
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

She was quite content not to share the pain of her men, after all did they share the pain of women?

Related Characters: Santino “Sonny” Corleone, Mama Corleone, Thomas “Tom” Hagen
Page Number: 254
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the atmosphere of money.

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone, Thomas “Tom” Hagen, Emilio Barzini, Phillip Tattaglia
Page Number: 267
Explanation and Analysis:

“We are all men who have refused to be fools, who have refused to be puppets dancing on a string pulled by the men on high. We have been fortunate here in this country […] Some of you have sons who are professors, scientists, musicians, and you are fortunate. Perhaps your grandchildren will become the new pezzonovanti.”

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone (speaker), Thomas “Tom” Hagen, Emilio Barzini, Phillip Tattaglia
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

Merit meant nothing. Talent meant nothing. Work meant nothing. The Mafia Godfather gave you your profession as a gift.

Related Characters: Michael Corleone, Don Tommasino, Dr. Taza
Page Number: 312
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 28 Quotes

“Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold.”

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone (speaker), Santino “Sonny” Corleone, Michael Corleone, Thomas “Tom” Hagen, Peter “Pete” Clemenza, Salvatore “Sal” Tessio, Emilio Barzini, Phillip Tattaglia, Bruno Tattaglia
Page Number: 387
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

He would see to it that they joined the general family of humanity, but he, as a powerful and prudent parent, would most certainly keep a wary eye on that general family.

Related Characters: Don Vito Corleone, Michael Corleone, Kay Adams
Page Number: 394
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

He understood that he would be happier in the world the Corleones had created than in the world outside.

Related Characters: Michael Corleone, Albert “Al” Neri
Page Number: 407
Explanation and Analysis: