The Journey from Michael Corleone to The Godfather

Michael Corleone definitely followed Joesph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" theory.

Michael went through all of the stages from Departure to Return and Reintegration with Society.  The movie starts off with Michael being at his sister's wedding, with his girlfriend Kay.  Both, look out of place-- outcasts, and Michael describes is "not [him] Kay, that's [his] family".  He resents his family.

The attempted-murder of his father.  What does Michael do?  He goes to the hospital where is father is being treated and says "I'm with you Pop", which suggests that Michael is in the midst of the second stage of the Hero's Journey: Initiation, when the Hero realizes there is another world that needs him and he becomes more aware of his new role.  When Michael is making his way to his father's room, he notices that no one except for a nurse on her night shift is there.  He finds that it is a bit strange that no one else is around--quiet.  Too quiet.  Out of paranoia, he and the nurse move his father to a different room.  He is about to leave, but Nazorini (the baker who made the cake for Connie's wedding) shows up to pay a visit Vito Corleone.  Michael hastily tells him to do what he does outside the hospital "put your fingers in your pocket, like you have a gun".  Nazorini does this out of fear of what might happen next.  A suspicious car goes by and minutes later McClusky shows up and starts to punch the lights out of Michael.  This shows how quickly he reacted to make sure that no harm was to come to his father in the hospital.  Michael has now "cross[ed] a threshold into a new, more dangerous world" (Joseph Campbell's Stages of a Hero's Journey).

The third stage: The Road of Trials.  Michael has to kill Sollazzo and McClusky.  He volunteers for the job.  He sets up a meeting with them in a restaurant, where he uses his 'magic weapon' (the gun with tape so that fingerprints do not show up) to kill them.  This is one of his trials that basically gets him on his way to becoming the new Godfather.

Since the events in the third stage happened, he had no choice but to move on to the fourth stage, which is The Inner Most Cave.  This stage is basically about the Hero needing to go into hiding for a while to think things over (which is what Michael needed to do anyway).  He moves to Sicily for about a year to be safe from the Tattaglia (since he killed Sollazzo, who is part of that family).  While he is in Sicily, he is reborn.  He changes his perspectives on the Mafia business, and gets more in touch with what he wants to do.

The final stage is Return and Reintegration with Society.  When he comes back from Sicily to America, he is more involved with the family business.  He has now become the head of the family.  Everybody respects him as everyone respected his father before him.

Michael as come a long way.  From being a normal citizen--not wanting to do anything with his father's Mafia business, to become the next--Godfather.