Luca Brasi Character Analysis

Brasi is Don Corleone’s most loyal and trusted enforcer, a Mafia henchman who carries out murders and beatings on behalf of the Don. Luca is a towering figure whose fearsome size and intimidating grimace strikes fear into everyone except Don Corleone. Brasi has a reputation as a brutal killer with an unlimited potential for inflicting savage violence on those who betray or cross the Corleone Family. Brasi began his life of crime as a teenager when he killed his abusive, alcoholic father and pushed a neighbor off a roof for sleeping with his mother. Brasi’s work as a Corleone Family enforcer helps further build his legendary reputation. In one instance, when two soldiers from Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit attempted to kill Don Vito, Brasi tracked the men down and dismembered one with an axe while the man was still alive. The man’s partner choked on the gag Brasi placed in his mouth. In another horrifying incident, Brasi forced an Italian midwife, Filomena, to kill his newborn baby (whose mother is a prostitute), by tossing the child into a furnace. Puzo describes Brasi as a man without feeling, ethics, or conscience who does not fear death, the Devil, or hell, but who chooses to fear Don Corleone, to whom he swears eternal loyalty. Brasi represents the pure evil that comes from crime without conscience. Even bosses like Don Corleone adhere to some rules and ethics, but Brasi embodies an almost nihilistic rejection of any human compassion. Ultimately, Bruno Tattaglia and Virgil Sollozzo murder Brasi when he tries to spy on their operations for Don Corleone.