When Sonny is talking to Michael, before Tom returns safely, Sonny says:
“With the old man gone, the Family power is cut at least in half. I would be fighting for my life anyway to keep all the businesses the old man got together. Drugs are the coming thing, we should get into it. And his knocking off the old man is purely business, nothing personal. As a matter of business I would go in with him. Of course he would never let me get too close, he’d make sure I’d never get a clean shot at him, just in case. But he also knows that once I accepted the deal the other Families would never let me start a war a couple of years later just for revenge..â€
When Tom arrives Sonny asks him what should they do if their father dies. Tom says:
“I know you won’t do it but I would advise you to make a real deal with Sollozzo on the drugs. Without your father’s political contacts and personal influence the Corleone Family loses half its strength. Without your father, the other New York Families might wind up supporting the Tattaglias and Sollozzo just to make sure there isn’t a long destructive war. If your father dies, make the deal. Then wait and see.â€
Sonny doesn’t like hearing this from Tom and points out that Tom is not blood to which Tom retorts that he was as much of a son to Vito as Sonny or Michael, maybe better. Sonny realizes he hit a nerve and swiftly apologizes.
But what’s interesting here is how Sonny gets angry at Tom for advising the rational course of action which Sonny himself had
JUST FINISHED laying out to Michael. So either we can think that is bad writing from Puzo or more likely just a realistic example of human nature. Sometimes we don’t want to consider the “right†answer when it’s the painful one. And we certainly don’t want to hear it from other people-even loved ones. Sonny was hoping that Tom had some magic way out.
Thoughts???
