The Godfather: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

The narrative shifts backward in time to explore the Godfather’s origins. The Godfather was born Vito Andolini in the village of Corleone, in turn-of-the-century Sicily. There, the Mafia acted like a “Second government” that was more powerful than the actual government in Rome. When Vito was 12, the local Mafia Don murdered Vito’s father and older brother after a protracted feud. Fearing that the adolescent Vito would seek revenge, the Don attempted to kill Vito first. However, Vito escaped to America, where he took the last name of his home village as his own and became Vito Corleone.

After arriving in New York, Vito boards with a family named the Abbandandos, works in their family grocery store, and befriends their son, Genco. In Vito’s Little Italy neighborhood, a man named Don Fanucci (a representative of the proto-Mafia “Black Hand”) uses threats of physical violence to extort money from other Italians. One day, a group of punks slit Fanucci’s throat from ear to ear, leaving a horrific scar, but failing to kill him. Later, one of the punks turns up dead and the families of the other two pay to keep Fanucci from retaliating. The attack increases Fanucci’s notoriety, allowing him to charge more “protection” money.

Vito has grown up and is married with two children when Fanucci buys a share in the Abbandando’s store and forces Vito to give up his job to the Fanucci’s own nephew. Vito works other odd jobs while nursing a hatred for Fanucci. One evening, a young man named Clemenza asks Vito to hide some guns in his apartment. Vito agrees and, in return, Clemenza steals a rug for Vito from a wealthy neighbor’s house. Clemenza and Vito soon collaborate with another local hood, Tessio, and they start hijacking goods from delivery trucks and selling them in the neighborhood for a profit.

Don Fanucci, clad in his cream-colored suit and fedora, has gotten word of Vito’s hijacking efforts. He tracks Vito down and demands a portion of the profits earned. “You should let me wet my beak,” he threatens, and tells Vito that if he hands over $300 than he will forget the insult Vito has given by not recognizing Fanucci’s influence over the neighborhood. Vito responds that Clemenza and Tessio share the money, so he will have to speak to them first. Vito’s calmness impresses Fanucci, who agrees to give him time to collect the money.

That evening, Vito, Tessio, and Clemenza meet at Vito’s home. “Why do we have to pay him?” Vito asks, “what can he do to the three of us?” Clemenza answers that the Black Hand has powerful “brutes” for friends who can retaliate against those who do not pay up. Vito, however, knows that Fanucci has no real connections; otherwise, he would have killed all three men that slit his throat. He tells his friends that they will pay Fanucci just $200. Vito then instructs Tessio to send Fanucci to Vito’s apartment, where Vito will “reason with him.”

Before Fanucci arrives at Vito’s apartment, Vito sends his family away for the evening. He plans to murder Fanucci and thereby save a total of $700: the $300 he owes Fanucci, plus the $400 from Tessio and Clemenza. He does not fear the police or the electric chair, because he “had lived under a sentence of death since the murder of his father.” When Fanucci arrives at 9:00 p.m., Vito gives him $500 and says he will pay the additional $200 when he finds more work. Impressed by Vito’s courage, Fanucci agrees on the delayed payment and exits Vito’s building.

As Fanucci turns the street corner, Vito runs up the stairs to the building roof. He follows Fanucci from above over the building roofs and descends the fire escape to the street, right across from Fanucci’s apartment house. Vito creeps past the nearby tenement houses and slips into the hallway of Fanucci’s domicile, where he draws his gun and waits until Fanucci enters, and then he fires the gun, killing Fanucci. With the murder completed, Vito takes Fanucci’s wallet (which is practically empty save for Vito’s money) and flees back to the rooftops. He takes the money back and tosses his gun down one airshaft and Fanucci’s wallet down another.

Much to his surprise, the police never question Vito about Fanucci’s murder, treating it as just another gangland hit. After two weeks, Vito meets again with Tessio and Clemenza, who greet him with “obvious respect.” Clemenza suggests taking over Fanucci’s extortion rackets, but Vito refuses. The men understand without ever saying so that Vito had killed Fanucci. Within a few weeks, the entire neighborhood treats Vito as “a man of respect.” Hearing of Vito’s new reputation, a widow named Signora Colombo implores him to talk to her landlord, who kicked her out because her son got a dog.

Vito “reasons” with the landlord, Mr. Roberto, and pays him for the widow’s rent. “I’m asking you a favor, only that,” Vito explains, “one never knows when one might need a friend, isn’t that true?” Mr. Roberto is at first indignant but changes his mind upon learning of Vito’s reputation. He allows the widow to stay and even returns Vito’s money to avoid crossing a “man of respect” who is “reputed to be a member of the Mafia of Sicily.”

Steadily, the now feared and respected Vito Corleone builds his own criminal operations. He intercedes on behalf of storeowners plagued by young hoodlums in exchange for being “properly rewarded.” He then opens his own olive oil importing business, Genco Pura, named after his new Consigliere. Although it is nominally a “legitimate” business, Vito strong-arms storeowners to carry his oil and threatens competitors with violence. Vito, “like many businessmen of genius,” learned “that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient.” He establishes his monopoly through violence: he burns competitors’ warehouses, hijacks their shipments, and beats those who resist.

The institution of Prohibition in 1920 proves a boon to Vito’s criminal operations: he amasses great wealth by smuggling alcohol from Canada into the United States. In his neighborhood, Vito becomes Godfather to people in the neighborhood by performing services in exchange for their loyalty to him. He also formalizes the major hierarchies in his crime family by making Genco Consigliere, Tessio and Clemenza his caporegimes, and putting “layers of insulation between himself and any operational act” so as not to implicate himself as the Don of a criminal syndicate. He also forbids the caporegimes from associating with each other in order to dissuade them from conspiring against him.

Don Vito Corleone’s charitable actions—loaning money to those in need, protecting them from physical threats, serving as an alternative to legal justice—helps him amass wealth and power. “There [is] some self-interest in this generosity,” and he uses his growing connections and web of loyalties to consolidate his power “with all the foresight of a great national leader.”

When Don Corleone proposes a partnership with the Mafia boss Salvatore Maranzano, who controls the gambling rackets in Brooklyn, Maranzano spurns his offer. Corleone retaliates by using his political connections and the brute force of his caporegimes and their soldiers against Maranzano’s best men. When Maranzano allies with Chicago Mafia boss Al Capone to have Corleone killed, Don Vito enlists Luca Brasi to intercept the would-be assassins and brutally murder them with an axe. This sends a message to Capone to not interfere in quarrels between Sicilians.

Don Corleone’s humiliation of Al Capone earns him further respect in the criminal underworld. He now attacks Maranzano’s gambling parlors, co-opts his allies and soldiers, and cripples his ability to make profits. Finally, some of Maranzano’s own men betray him, allowing Tessio and his soldiers to murder the boss while he eats lunch. The war now over, Don Corleone incorporates Maranzanos’ operations into his own empire.

Don Corleone has established himself as New York’s most powerful crime lord, and his influence begins to rub off on his son Sonny, who takes part in an armed robbery. A furious Don Corleone lectures Sonny on the foolishness of his behavior until Sonny reveals that he witnessed his father murder Don Fanucci. The Don recognizes his hypocrisy in lecturing Sonny, who wants to join the “family business.” Don Corleone continues to reprimand Sonny for his temper but realizes that he can use his son’s anger to his own advantage.

Seeking to rid New York of all organized crime save for the five major Mafia families, Don Corleone enlists Sonny as his go-to executioner behind only the more fearsome Luca Brasi. By 1939, through a combination of calculated violence and tactful negotiation, Don Corleone organizes a working peace between the Five Families that control the criminal underworld. As World War II breaks out, the Don takes comfort in his powerful status: “his world was safe for those who had sworn loyalty to him; other men who believed in law and order were dying by the millions.”

Don Corleone also continues to help those who swear their loyalty to him. Nazorine the baker comes to him after a furniture wholesaler swindles him out of $300. In response, the Don sends Genco to speak with the wholesaler, who “caught the drift immediately” and arranges for Nazorine to get the furniture. In addition, Don Corleone decides to move his family to suburban Long Beach, where he can bask in the anonymity of suburban life. When an unscrupulous furnace crew demands exorbitant sums to repair the Don’s furnace, Sonny holds them at gunpoint until they finish the work free.