LEAVE THE GUN, TAKE THE CANNOLI: THE AMERICAN DREAM AND THE GODFATHER TRILOGY

Abstract

While most Americans are familiar with the concept of the American Dream, it is rather difficult to define in certain terms. Geela, author of "The American Dream," sees it as a social attitude "based on perspiration, innovation, risk and reward with the focus on a wholesome values system, integrity, family, community and a strong work ethic."¹ Historian James Truslow Adams, often credited with coining the phrase "American Dream," believed it to be a social order in which each person is able to reach the highest potential "of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."² Whichever definition one chooses, the Godfather films embody this dream through the lifelong struggle of Vito Corleone to rise above his lowly birth in a pseudo-feudal society to become a man of wealth and power through his own cunning and mind for business. Yet American society has often set barriers to deter immigrants from seeking to improve their lot in life, and Vito's pursuit of the American Dream—as well as his son Michael's subsequent pursuit of the same—becomes instead a perversion of its ideals: wholesome values are replaced with a bloody honor code, the traditional family structure is supplanted by a hierarchy of Mafia dons, lieutenants, and street soldiers, and the community is ruled alternately through goodwill and fear. It is this perversion of the American Dream that forms the basis of this paper, beginning with Vito's early experiences in America and how discrimination and societal influences molded him and his underworld offspring. The second section examines the Mafia's influence on society ¹ Geela, "The Politics of the American Dream," Women's Radio News, http://www.womensradio.com/contentitemplates/?a=31&z=,(accessed 10 June 2007, 1). ² James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America. (Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1931), 214. and its role as an alternative version of the American Dream to those whom society had shunned and abused. The final section explores the reality of modern Italian-American life and how it is represented—or misrepresented—in the films. As a whole, this paper will argue that while society made it impossible for Vito or Michael to achieve conventional success, the criminal enterprise they created in its place bore the unmistakable influence of the American Dream, degraded as it was.