60 pages • 2 hours read
Mario PuzoThe Godfather
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary
Don Corleone has made a full recovery and reassumed his role as head of the family in the wake of Sonny’s death. The other families fully expect retribution for Sonny’s death, and so everyone—except Tom Hagen—is surprised when Don Corleone proposes peace instead. He goes one step further, proposing peace between all of the families across the United States. He has invited representatives from all the families to come to a meeting about his peace proposal. The other families are still understandably wary, and so Don Corleone hires the Bocchicchio family to act as hostages.
The Bocchicchio family has a waste management business, among other concerns. When a meeting is to take place between two Mafia members who do not trust one another, the Bocchicchio family gives a family member to each man, as a surety for the two men in the meeting. If either one of the men is killed in the meeting, the other man’s representative hostage will be killed by the other family. Then the family who perpetrated the original harm will have to deal with the Bocchicchio family and the vengeance that they will seek. When Don Corleone hires the Bocchicchios, all the other families are reassured that his stated intentions are true, and that they will be safe.
Various men from families around the country attend the meeting: Carlo Tramonti, from the southern United States; Joseph Zaluchi, from Detroit; Frank Falcone and Anthony Molinari, from the West Coast; Vincent Forlenza, from Cleveland; and Domenick Panza, from Boston. In addition, representatives from all of the New York families are in attendance: Anthony Stracci, Ottilio Cuneo, Emilio Barzini, and Phillip Tattaglia. Tattaglia does not receive the respect he might expect for his actions against the Corleone family. This is partly because the other families know that his power in that battle came first from Sollozzo and later from the Barzini family, and partly because he did not achieve complete victory. With his failure to kill Don Corleone, Tattaglia created problems for all the other families.
Don Corleone opens the meeting by thanking them all for coming. He states that both he and Tattaglia have lost sons, and that they are even. He also makes clear that, until he achieves a peace that they all agree to, no business will be done. Barzini speaks up, saying that Don Corleone, who holds the most political influence of all the families, would be injuring them all by refusing to do business. He essentially accuses Don Corleone of refusing them a favor, a grave breach of the code amongst the families. Don Corleone responds by saying, in so many words, that he will support the narcotics venture with his influence, but he will not take part in the actual operation. All of the families concede that the drug business is a bad one, but they cannot stop it. The meeting is long and productive, and at the end, Phillip Tattaglia asks for direct assurance from Don Corleone that there will be no vengeance. Don Corleone replies that, on his honor, he will never seek vengeance. He also calls for unity amongst the families against the outside world. He then adds that he wants to bring Michael home, but if anything were to happen to Michael, he will seek vengeance.
After Don Corleone gets home, he tells Tom to bring Tessio and Clemenza to his office for a meeting. He tells them that he wants the issue of Sonny’s death to be dropped and no longer pursued. He also wants cooperation with the other families above all things until they get Michael home safe. He plans to turn the mall, where the families all live, into a “fortress” and buy all the land around it. He also wants Tessio and Clemenza’s regimes to absorb Sonny’s soldiers. Tom is to check on Freddy’s business in Las Vegas. After Tessio and Clemenza leave, the Don and Tom talk about the meeting that day. Tom says he does not understand the Don’s uncharacteristic decisions. The Don says he will keep his word and not break The Don’s Code, but that things will be resolved in the end, and the most important thing is to bring Michael home. The Don has heard that Barzini has begun to figure out where Michael is hiding. By the end of their conversation, Tom understands that the Don has a plan that he cannot yet see.
Chapter 21 Summary
Even after a year, no one can come up with a good way to bring Michael home safely without worrying about potential murder charges. An answer appears with Felix Bocchicchio, who has been convicted of the murders of three men and has been given the death penalty. Don Corleone arranges that, in exchange for a pension for his wife and children, Felix will take the blame for Michael’s murders of Sollozzo and McCluskey. The plan works, and after Felix Bocchicchio is executed, Don Corleone issues the order to bring Michael home.
Chapter 22 Summary
Lucy Mancini, Sonny’s former lover, now lives in Las Vegas, working at the hotel run by Fredo. She has lived in Las Vegas for 18 months and is reporting on Fredo to Tom and the Don. She has become friends with Jules Segal, a doctor with offices in the hotel. Lucy and Jules have sex, and Jules tells her that that he knows a surgeon that can help her with a medical issue. He then tells her why he is working in Las Vegas after a promising career in New York. He provided illegal abortions in New York and was caught. A friend of his was owed a favor by Tom Hagen, and so the Corleone family got his charges dropped and found him a job in Las Vegas. Two weeks later, Lucy has her operation, and when Jules goes to visit her, he meets Johnny Fontane and Nino Valenti. He notices Johnny’s hoarse voice and talks Johnny into letting him examine it. He tells Johnny he has warts in his throat, and he can remove them. He also confronts Nino about his drinking problem, and Nino makes it clear that he is consciously drinking himself to death.
Chapters 20-22 Analysis
In Book 5, the Don returns to power, but when he calls for peace, no one understands his actions. The other Dons are understandably wary about his motivations, finding it hard to believe that Don Corleone would not seek vengeance for Sonny’s death or his own shooting. The reader might find it hard to believe as well, and so Puzo uses Tom’s disbelief to both underscore the uncharacteristic action and to introduce the idea that there is more going on here than anyone—other than the Don—can see at the moment.
By the end of the chapter, the reader realizes, as does Tom, that the Don has a plan that no one else can see or understand yet. Even Tom, who has greater insight into the Don’s strategy than any other man, cannot see what the Don is planning. This strategy of keeping things to himself and not showing his reactions is a part of The Don’s Code. Yet readers also know that another part of the Don’s Code involves honor, and the fact that his word, once given, is never broken. Tom understands that the Don is not going to break his word, and that he really will work to preserve the peace. However, Tom also understands that vengeance will be achieved, somehow, without violating The Don’s Code.
Away from all of this action, Chapter 22 drops in on Lucy, Jules, Johnny, and Nino in Las Vegas. Every time Puzo draws attention to Johnny, or anyone else out west, the reader is reminded of the fringe participant’s perspective on the family activities. Each of these people has somehow benefitted from the Don’s generosity and now find themselves permanently involved with the Corleone family business. Jules is the latest character who is saved by a Corleone favor, this time through a friend who was owed a favor by Tom Hagen. All of these people have benefitted from the Don’s actions, and yet they are all curiously unhappy, from Nino’s deep depression to Jules’s more manageable nihilistic ennui.
