MarcAnthony P. Solli
Concept/Topic: The notion of “Americanism” as it is redefined as a counterpoint and juxtaposition to traditional White Anglo-Saxon Protestant models seen in the text
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We will address the extent to which ethnicity (in this case Italian-Americanism) and gender (patriarchy) play a role in the redefinition of “Americanism” through the central character of Michael Corleone.
General Goals
: Students will come to understand how aspects of Jay Gatz’s “American” work ethic, monetary success, the acquisition of power through material possessions, and the introduction of criminality are usurped, twisted, deepened and reworked by Mario Puzo’s Michael Corleone, who seeks to divest himself of ethnicity in order to adhere more forcefully to the Fitzgerald model. We will also address the inherent irony in Michael Corleone’s patterning himself on a Gatsbyesque model, especially since Gatsby is a criminal representation whom Michael resists in rejecting his father Don Vito.
Specific Objectives
: Students will be able to perform close readings of selected passages which detail Michael Corleone’s pursuit of “Americanism”. Students will locate specific references (five to ten) to the text and film as an aid and impetus to guided, Socratic discussion, and they will journal on specific topics for no more than ten minutes at a time on such passages. Of particular interest will be Michael’s physical transformation through clothing adjustments, hair style, choice in schooling (Dartmouth) and spouse (Kay ‘Adams’, reminiscent of Colonial America), and his utter rejection of Italian-American ethnicity and its corollaries-Catholicism, mobster affiliation, ethnic language.
Students will also be able to note the “outsider” status of Michael in relation to his family which impels him to reject ethnicity and criminality, and which, ironically, places him in a realm with the women of the Corleone family, positioned as outsiders to the dealings of the men of the story, who embrace ethnicity and gangsterism.
Required Materials
:
Mario Puzo’s
The Godfather
(and Francis Coppola’s
Godfather
and
Godfather, Part II
), notebook, highlighters, writing implements, DVD player or VCR, possibly a digital LCD projector with remote control for pauses during discussion and juxtapositions with text.
Anticipatory Set
:
The guiding question “What makes someone American?” will be converted to “How is Michael Corleone changing to make himself more American?” Students will be asked to cite five to ten specific references to either the visual or literary texts which support the notion that Michael is divesting himself of family attachments, ethnic affiliations, or religious practices associated with Italian-Americanism. Students will then write a journal response of no more than fifteen lines for approximately 10 minutes in which they reflect on Michael’s changes and ponder exactly what his understanding of “American” might be. Students will then present observations in a debriefing format to generate further class discussion.
Procedures
:
In cooperative groupings, students will be asked to rotate with their journal entries to other members of the class in order to refine their interpretations of precisely how Michael Corleone has become a more American character in appearance and reality. The class will reunify and debrief, with group leaders presenting or an open forum discussion helping us to revisit the issue as we approach the text, exploring the possibility that both Gatsby and Corleone are actually representing the same unrealistic, archetypal notion of “Americanism” which is at once elusive and mythical.
Independent Practice
:
Students will work in cooperative pairs or triads to rewrite some of the dialogue from specific scenes in the text where Michael is developing his “American” sense of identity, and they will incorporate this sense of his new identity into their brief scenes to be presented later in the class. Students will be instructed to ensure that the dialogue for their scenes is reflective enough to denote or mention specific changes to Michael’s intrinsic character which make him appear to audiences to be embracing an American ideal instead of a mobster’s persona, while he ironically assumes the mantle of his dead father.
Closure
:
Students will wrestle in a final reflection on the topic of whether Michael Corleone is in fact guided by the hand of destiny or fate in his anti-heroic journey, and whether his resistance to ethnicity is merely symbolic of his desire to resist the existensial angst of his own predicament in being unable to overcome the destiny that has positioned him, because of his character and innate abilities, at the helm of his family’s criminal responsibilities.
Students will reflect in their journals for as to whether or not autonomy and willfulness are imperative qualities to the fulfillment of the American Dream, or whether fate can play an equal hand in the achievement of “Americanism”.
Students with exceptionalities may be given specific homework related to cross-curricular connections (i.e., reports or Powerpoint presentations on the post-World War II era, the New York Mafia families of the 1940s and 1950s, the Communist takeover of Cuba (featured in
Godfather II
), the political climate in the United States which allowed for organized to flourish, or analysis of the female characters of the text as outsiders).
Students with learning disabilities will either have the length and depth of their reflective journals and textual citations mitigated, while allowing them other venues by which to assess Michael Corleone’s turn to “Americanism” (for example, through drawing, storyboarding, poetry, or other less conventional journaling variations).
