a symbolic complex of primal patterns out of which modernnWestern society grows and from recognition of which the characteristicnsuperstitions of modernity usually flee.n”Behind every great fortune there is a crime,” wrote Honorende Balzac in a cynical sentiment that Puzo chose as the epigraphnof his novel. The line at once establishes the metaphornthat dominates the book as well as the films and carries usninto the essentially Machiavellian world view that pervadesnthem and to which most of its Italian-American charactersnsubscribe. If “great fortunes” may be read as “human society”nitself, then the history of crime becomes the history of society.nThe Godfather thus begins with not merely an analogy betweennthe warfare and power struggles among criminals onnthe one hand, and the more normal civil relationships of legitimatensociety on the other, but also with an actual genealogynthat traces the latter to their origins in force and fraud.nNor is the line from Balzac the only way the crime-societynmetaphor is established. Throughout the book and films,nthere is a continuous flow of language and event that suggestsnthe analogy, and the characters themselves frequently invoke it.nWhen Tom Hagen, consigliore to Don Vito Corleone, urges hisnboss and foster parent to accept the offer of a partnershipnwith the Sicilian gangster SoUozzo for peddling drugs, he citesnthe power practices among real governments. If the Corieonenfamily doesn’t accept SoUozzo’s bargain, Hagen argues, it willneventually be overwhelmed by the rival families. “It’s just likencountries,” he says. “If they arm, we have to arm. If they becomenstronger economically, they become a threat to us.”nThe capo regime Clemenza, explaining to Michael Corleonenwhy a gang war is necessary, draws his own analogy with pre-nWorld War 11 diplomacy, in a scene from both book and film.n”These things have to happen every ten years or so,” muses thencorpulent killer. “You gotta stop them at the beginning. Likenthey shoulda stopped Hitler at Munich, they never shouldnhave let him get away with that, they were just asking for bigntrouble when they let him get away with that.”nYet the clearest such analogy between criminal and legitimatensociety is voiced by Michael Corleone himself in Part I ofnthe film series. Explaining to his innocent fiancee Kay Adamsnwhy the work of his father, one of the most powerful gangstersnin the country, is not as sinister as it seems, Michael tellsnher, “My father is no different than any other powerful man—nany man who’s responsible for other people, like a senator or anPresident.” It is a comparison that Kay, daughter of a Baptistnclergyman from New Hampshire, at once rejects. “Do younknow how naive you sound?” she asks in the naively preachynway such women affect. “Senators and Presidents don’t havenmen killed”—a line that, when the movie is shown in crowdednAmerican theaters, never fails to collapse the audience intonderisive laughter. Whatever the veracity of the crime-societynmetaphor, apparently a lot of Americans, at least in the Watergatenera, were perfectly comfortable with the notion that itnwas true.nIf the premise of the novel is that the practices of normal ornlegitimate human society are analogous to those of criminalngangs, it is hardly surprising that the ghost of Machiavelli lurksnthroughout the novel and films, since the view of politicalnpower as essentially extralegal and extramoral is a fundamentalntheme of Machiavelli’s political thought. Though his namenis never invoked, there are clear instances of what may wellnbe the direct influence of the Italian political theorist whosenname has become (unjustly) synonymous with the synthesis ofncunning and brutality. As in Machiavelli’s thought, the Princenis not only above the law but the source of law and all socialnand political order, so in the Corleone universe, the Don is “responsible”nfor his family, a responsibility that authorizes him tondo virtually anything except violate the obligations of the familynbond. Michael’s description of his father is not only Machiavelliannbut also virtually Nietzschean. “My father,” Michaelntells Kay,nis a businessman trying to provide for his wife and childrennand those friends he might need someday in antime of trouble. He doesn’t accept the rules of the societynwe live in because those rules would have condemnednhim to a life not suitable to a man like himself,na man of extraordinary force and character. Whatnyou have to understand is that he considers himself thenequal of all those great men like Presidents and PrimenMinisters and Supreme Court Justices and Governorsnof the States. He refuses to live by rules set up by others,nrules which condemn him to a defeated life. Butnhis ultimate aim is to enter that society with a certainnpower since society doesn’t really protect its membersnwho do not have their own individual power. In thenmeantime, he operates on a code of ethics he considersnfar superior to the legal structures of society.nMoreover, Don Corieone’s conversation as well as that ofnMichael and the other mafiosi is full of such homespunnamoralisms of power-playing as Machiavelli would have treasured:n”Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”; “Revengenis a dish that tastes best when it is cold”; “a lawyer withnhis briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns”;nand so on. They are just the sort of adages that fill the pages ofnMachiavelli’s own works, and they are based on his assumption,nwhich he shares with the Corleone family, that humannnature does not change and therefore the natural laws by whichnhuman beings gain, use, and lose power remain permanentnas well. And not only permanent but universal, so that theynapply to the dynamics of Mafia intrigues as much as to the relationshipsnamong governments and between governors andngoverned.nA prince, Machiavelli advises, must know how to imitatenthe lion and the fox, to use both force and cunning effectively,nthough it is also clear that most rulers do not know how tondo so and rely on one or the other too much. The lion-fox polarity,none of Machiavelli’s best known laws of power, is rathernclearly manifested in the scene in the novel and Part I of thenfilm series where Don Corieone’s sons, Santino and Tom Hagen,nargue over how to respond to the attempted assassinationnof the Don and the attack on their family. Santino, a headstrongnand violent young man, is eager to “go to the mattresses”nin an all-out war with the rival gangs who back his father’snenemy SoUozzo. Notorious even in Mafia circles for his hotntemper and taste for violence, Santino is the lion, and indeednthe name “Corleone” can be translated as “Lionheart.” Hagen,nan adopted son of the Godfather, is not Sicilian but German-Irish;nhe counsels prudence and further negotiations. IfnSantino is the lion, Hagen is the fox, and the conflict betweennthem appears to be a stalemate.nIt is then that Michael, the Don’s youngest son, who was notnraised to take part in the family’s criminal affairs, injects him-nnnOCTOBER 1992/25n