The Godfather: Chapter 19 Summary & Analysis

The narrative goes back in time. As the Mafia war rages on, Sonny Corleone massacres an army of pimps, “shylocks,” union officials, and bookmakers who work for the Five Families. The slaughter proves satisfying, but it does not turn the tide of the war because it leaves the leadership of the other Families untouched. Sonny lacks Don Corleone’s “strategical genius,” and Hagen warns him to lay low because the Five Families have made him a “marked man.” However, despite the danger of being out in the open, he continues to see Lucy Mancini.

One evening, an anonymous woman telephones the residence of Carlo and Connie. Connie answers, and the girl tells her that she is unable to see Carlo that evening. Later, when Carlo comes home from the racetrack, a furious Connie berates him for his infidelity. She scrapes his face with her fingernails and demands that he stay home. She points to the dinner she made for him but he says he is not hungry.

Enraged, Connie throws Carlo’s dinner plates to the floor. Carlo grabs his belt. “You filthy guinea spoiled brat,” he screams, “clean that up right now or I’ll kick the shit out of you.” He beats her with the belt, then gets drunk on whiskey and falls asleep. As Carlo sleeps, Connie calls her family in Long Beach. Mama Corleone answers but is unable to interpret Connie’s “hysterical” speech. She passes the phone to Sonny. She begs Sonny to send a car to bring her to the mall but insists that he himself should stay put.

Unable to contain his rage, Sonny pays no heed to Connie’s request that he stay put. “The fucking sonofabitch” he mutters as he leaves the house, gets into his car, and heads towards Connie’s apartment. One look at Sonny’s face lets Hagen know that “all reasoning power had left him.” He orders two bodyguards to follow Sonny’s car as he drives onto the Jones Beach Causeway.

Sonny drives down the Jones Beach Causeway until he reaches a tollbooth. He shuffles his pockets for money to pay the toll and approaches approach the gate, where another car is ahead of him. He hands the tolltaker a dollar bill and notices the car ahead of him has stopped. In a flash, the tolltaker raises a gun and fires it at Sonny. His body “spilled out of the car” as two men in the car ahead of him also shoot him in the head, and then get out and kick his face “to disfigure his features even more.”

The assassins flee the scene shortly before Sonny’s bodyguards arrive. They call Tom Hagen to tell him that Sonny is dead. As Mama Corleone bustles around in the kitchen, “quite content not to share the pain of her men,” Hagen retreats to the conference room and begins shaking. He understands now that he is not a fit wartime Consigliere, that the other families had fooled him by waiting patiently “to land one terrible blow” against the Corleones. Still shaken, Tom calls a still-drunk Carlo and tells him that Sonny is dead and that the family is moving him to the mall and giving him a more lucrative job.

Hagen must now wake Don Corleone and tell him that his son is dead. As he struggles to find the words to deliver the news, Don Corleone emerges fully dressed from his room. “Outside my window I saw my caporegimes coming to the house and it is midnight,” he says. “So, Consigliere of mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone knows.” Hagen delivers the news. For a moment, the Don seems drained of his strength, but he quickly recovers. Clemenza and Tessio arrive, and Hagen gives the men the full story of Sonny’s murder.

Once Hagen has finished with the details, Don Corleone explicitly forbids any of the men to seek vengeance without his approval. “There will be no further acts of war against the Five Families without my express and personal wish,” the Don insists. He also orders all Family business to cease until after Sonny’s funeral. When he finishes speaking, Don Corleone goes to speak with his wife, and Hagen calls Amerigo Bonasera “to redeem the favor he owed to the Corleones.”