In the novel, Bonasera comes to the house of the great don to ask a favor. This scene from the novel was later used in the famous beginning of the movie. Puzo used Bonasera as a symbol of the assimilate Italian-American, who has become apart of American society and trusted American law and order. Although Bonasera is Italian, he is in a larger sense symbolize the "average American" to the reader and later to the audience for the film. Bonasera is the vehicle to which the reader and audience is introduce to Don Corleone. Mario Puzo gave an interview to NPR in 1996 (here the link:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4212820) in which he told Terry Gross the interviewer about the popularity of the Godfather "Everybody's wish that they would have somebody to go to who correct all of their injustices without going to court, hiring a lawyer." One of my favorite lines in the entire film is when before the Godfather agree to give justice for Bonasera's daughter he said. "And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies then they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you." This line is spoken to not only to Bonasera but the reader and the audience. This is why having a "friend" like Don Corloene is so tempting because he can right all of your wrongs for a price of course. Many readers and many audiences understand where Bonasera wants and may in fact agree with Bonasera want of "justice" for his daughter, but it still illegal. The only way Bonasera could get justice for his daughter is go to the Godfather. The enduring popularity of the Godfather is perhaps establish with these classic scene in the novel and in the film because they showed that there is a person or at least the possibility of person who can fix their world if they only asked him but as Don Corleone famously said "Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me." People cannot asked a favor from him without expecting to give one back in the future, and they must pay their debt or suffering the wrath of the Godfather.

Contrast that with the experience of a truly assimilated Italian-American: Dr. Melfi of "The Sopranos," who's a second-generation American:
In a mid-run episode of "Sopranos," Melfi is brutally raped in a stairwell. The police eventually catch the assailant. But due to an administrative screw-up, they have to release him. Melfi knows that her patient, Tony Soprano, is a Mafia boss, and can provide the "justice" that the law failed to provide. You see her agonizing about whether or not to ask Tony for intervention. But, in the end, she doesn't because she knows it'll change her entire professional relationship with him. She "didn't want to get involved," as Bonasera said--before capitulating to Vito.

Vito states emphatically,

 Quote:

Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. Until that day accept this justice as a gift on my daughter's wedding day.

And when Vito finally calls upon Bonaserra to perform the service owed to Vito, he asks him only to use his skills as an undertaker to prepare Sonny's body for viewing. Presumably, this was done at no charge to the family. None-the-less, Vito only asks Bonaserra to do what he does every day, but to meet a very demanding, nearly unattainable standard in prepping Sonny's massacred body for burial.

And what kind of "service" would the street hoods have demanded in Goodfellas or in The Sopranos? Had Melfi asked Tony for revenge, Tony would NOT have tucked that favor in his back pocket. He would have used it for some sort of short-term gratification in the straight world just like he would in his gangster world. My guess is that he would have cashed that chip immediately, likely demanding Melfi sleep with him, dragging him into his world rather than legitimizing himself in her world. I think she realized this, understanding that the justice she would have wanted came with a price she couldn't pay.

I always thought this was the key difference between The Godfather and Goodfellas or The Sopranos. Vito was all about the big picture and the long-term. Goodfellas and The Sopranos are about the short-term gains, the daily nuts-and-bolts of gangster life, and making your nut every week.

tony b.

Interesting points the two of you make. I'm not very familiar with the Sopranos, but I looked up this episode about Dr. Melfi's rape. Despite her anger, hate, and fear about what happen to her and the police messing up she decided that the moral or ethical thing to do is not to tell Tony. Although Tony would give her "justice," she knew that it would cost her everything she had build with Tony and forever lose her influence and sway over him. She could no longer be his therapist because when she tried to advise him or tell him what he should do he could always bring up that time when he gave "justice" to her and therefore he never really have to listen to her again. Their different worlds of the therapist and patient would collided and be destroyed with Tony emerging from collision with all the cards. Of course Tony would cashed in his chips with her immediately after he gave her "justice," however, I don't think he would used it to sleep with her, but he now has the power over her just like he does in his criminal world. Tony would be actions can be compare with a scene from the novel after Sonny get in trouble for robbery when he was a teenager. Don Corleone berated him for doing such a foolish mistake and tell him that in the legitimate world with a briefcase he could steal more money then a thousand men with guns. Sonny replied that he saw the Don killing Fanucci, and the Don knew that he had no longer any influence and sway over him. The Don knew that Sonny could never enter the legitimate world, so he must teach he to survive the criminal one. As for Bonasera, he decide to ask the favor from to the Don regardless of the moral and ethical implications. Lastly, David Chase, the creator of the Sopranos, stated for those expected Tony to seek "justice" for her, "If you're raised on a steady diet of Hollywood movies and network television, you start to think, 'Obviously there's going to be some moral accounting here'. That's not the way the world works. It all comes down to why you're watching. If all you want is to see big Tony Soprano take that guy's head and bang it against the wall like a cantaloupe… The point is—Melfi, despite pain and suffering, made her moral, ethical choice and we should applaud her for it. That's the story." For an audience, they might cheer and even applauded when Don Corleone agreed to give Bonasera's daughter "justice" but that is not the way world works. In the real world, Bonasera and Don Corleone actions should not be praise despite the audience wanting to see "justice" on the screen.

No doubt about it. Plus, in Tony's case, it'd be not only about instant gratification, but also about asserting his power for power's sake. Vito, on the other hand, was secure in his power base--he saw himself as "dispensing justice."

It's true that Vito didn't ask Bonasera to do anything other than his job in return for providing "justice" for Bonasera's daughter. But in the novel, and in a deleted scene from the movie, Bonasera, aware of the ongoing gang war, worries that Vito will ask him, as a licensed undertaker, to dispose of some high-ranking foe that the Corleones killed--making him an accomplice. That was not a far-fetched fear, although it turned out to be groundless.
The novel provides some contradictory thoughts. At Connie's wedding, when Michael is explaining Vito's operating style, he says that Vito stores favors in the way that explorers cache food and supplies--"and they'd better come across." Sounds menacing. Later, in California and Vegas, we see more of a reflection of the Bonasera payback. When Tom visits Johnny to help with his union problems, Johnny tells him that if favors are needed in return, he wants the Don to ask--not Sonny. Tom admires the smartness of this condition and replies, "Your godfather would never ask you to do anything you wouldn't want to do for him without asking" (or some such). And when Michael tells Jules that he'll be medical director of his hotels, Jules says there can't be any strings attached. Michael gets cold: "Do you think I'm so stupid that I'd ask you to do something you hated? But if I did, so what? Who else lifted a finger to help you when you were down?"


Yes, and that's the big picture to keep in mind. However appealingly Vito is portrayed in the novel and film, he's still a gangster and a criminal.

As the novel says, it wasn't until Bonasera had prepared Vito's body for the funeral that he had "discharged all obligations."