Birth order in The Godfather

I thought about posting this in the novel thread, but it relates to the movie too, so I'll post it here:

I had always wondered what the impetus was behind Puzo's decision to write the Corleone brothers as he did...why Sonny was the hothead, why Fredo was written as the weakest, and Michael was essentially the "golden child," who Vito had such high hopes for? Recently, I was reading some studies about how birth order can affect children's personaliies. Some firstborns take on the role as leaders and are far less agreeable, which I think describes Sonny since he was protective over his brothers, especially in the novel and he had a much more fiery temperanment than Michael and Fredo. Fredo seemed to suffer from "Middle Child Syndrome" in that he was just another son and was never deemed strong or smart enough to handle the family's imporant operations. And Michael, who was the last son, was the one destined for greatness in Vito's eyes, especially when he realized that Sonny wasn't going to be college bound.

It now makes me wonder if Puzo did any psychological research into birth order of children or he just arbitrarly assigned personalities to each of the Corleone boys.

Maybe he got that from personal experience. He had six brothers and sisters plus he had five children of his own, so he had more than enough background on which to draw.

Ty for the response, SC. I didn't consider Puzo's own family background may have had an impact on how he wrote the brothers. I just thought it was interesting from the research that I found on birth order on siblings seemed to match how Sonny, Fredo, and Michael were written.

I'm only guessing that his personal life experiences were his basis for writing Vito's sons as he did.

BTW - Go to IMDb and look up Mario Puzo's biography there. Check out who wrote it!!!

J Geoff! I must have been to IMDB hundreds of time. I never realized Geoff wrote for that site. I'm still a relative newbie here and am still learning who people are.

There is a popular medical theory that oldest sons have large penises, the middle sons have a high propensity towards homosexuality and the youngest sons become mean psychos. Puzo learnt about this theory when he was doing research on medical procedure for Lucy's vagina problems. He then built character traits around these key observations.

I think that's the only thing he submiited to IMDb.

In case you haven't already done so, check out Geoff's parent site to these boards (link below). It's filled with lots of info and fun stuff.

GEOFF'S 'GODFATHER' WEBSITE - CLICK HERE

Ty for the link, SC...Great, great site. I feel like I can stay there for days.

Don't do that ... Geoff will charge you rent.

Well, when you think about it, the three sons comprise the range of characteristics that one associates with males: aggression, intelligence, passivity.

There are a lot of characteristics in between aggression and passivity; so yeah, that covers everything. But then there is intelligence and stupidity; that's another range.

Being the eldest it would have always been hard on Sonny to know:
a) he was going to be the heir to his father.

and

b) that he was not the man his father was.

It explains a lot about his temperament. Fredo definitely was the middle child, and not only was he eclipsed by his older brother but also by the fact the next child was Connie, the first daughter to be born to Vito and his wife. Michael had the least pressure on him, and probably the most freedom and was most likely to rebel, which he did. Vito knew early on that Michael was the pick of the litter, and he had high hopes for him.

There's a great line about all this in GFII when Fredo and Mike are at the outdoor bar in Havana and Fredo says he wishes for once he could be more like Pop, to which Michael answers "It's not easy being his son."

Only was Michael the next born child, and Connie the youngest of all of Vito's children.

I've always seen the boys as representing different aspects of Vito's personality:

Sonny's aggression - Vito was willling to murder to achieve his objectives.

Fredo - Vito could be very easy going

Michael - Vito was quite intelligent

All good points, olivant. Out of all the sons, Michael is the one who most resembled Vito IMO, which is why he is the main protagnist of the story.

Even though it is not shown in the movie, I always thought that Sonny's aggression stemmed from watching Vito kill Fanucci. The book mentioned how Vito came to realize that Fanucci wasn't as powerful and well-connected as he seemed. But Sonny was not privy to his father's thoughts about Fanucci. He only witnessed Fanucci's murder, which I think led Sonny to believe that violence was the way to get things done.

Of course, the novel goes into things so much deeper. It says that Sonny had a quick, hot temper. I think that is illustrated in the film when he visits his sister the first time and sees her black eye. Then there is a deleted scene in which he starts to leave his father's presence to go after Carlo and Vito tells him to stop. So, I conclude that while witnessing Fanucci's murder may have sanctioned Sonny's future violence, its motivation came from deep inside him.