Loyalty, Disloyalty, and Business: Values in The Godfather Tamara Evans College

The Godfather is a timeless film set in the 1940s and based on the Corleones, a mafia family in New York. At its core, the film reflects the culture and the values of the Italian mafia. The Corleones are one of the wealthiest and most influential Italian mafia families in New York. They have the agency and power to inflict their domination over their competitors. Yet, while the Italian mafia family displays ruthless amounts of power in violence, they adhere to a unique subculture of values consisting of loyalty, respectability, and family.

Vito Corleone, known as "The Don," loyalty is more important than money. Vito creates loyalties by performing favors for others in exchange for their lifelong loyalty to him. He constructs different networks of loyalties that serve in the expansion of his criminal empire. In the opening scene of The Godfather, Bonasera pleads for the Godfather's help in avenging his daughter's assaulters. Bonasera offers payment to The Don in return for murder. The Don is insulted by the offer and refers to the Bonasera to pay in his loyalties. Therefore in return, Bonasera is in debt to return the favor to whatever the Corleones need of him. Bonasera's debt will further be of use to The Don, helping him...