SOURCE: "The New Mythology of Crime," in Boundary 2, Vol. 3, 1975, pp. 325-57.

In the following excerpt, Cawelti examines Puzo's depiction of the criminal organization as a family unit in The Godfather.

The best selling novel and film of the late 1960's and early 1970's was Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Its impact has been so great—over 10 million copies of the book sold in little over three years, more millions of movie admissions and still running after several years—that one doesn't need much prescience to predict that this work will be a major turning point in the evolution of popular literature, perhaps comparable to the significance of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, certainly as important as Ian Fleming's James Bond. In the wake of The Godfather's enormous success, plans have been announced for a film sequel, while a number of less effective films about the Mafia, such as The...