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.

Literary Feature Hunt: Foreshadow? What is this? }REVISED

The blog that I made before (with the same topic), was not accurate.  Only now, I realize that there is another possible example for foreshadow; the broken car scene where Kay was talking to Tom Hagen.  The scene that foreshadows this scene is the scene where Appolonia gets blown-up in their (Michael and her) car.  Fabrizzio was the culprit who put a bomb in their car to kill Michael.  Unfortunately, Appolonia was an innocent bystander.

When Kay asked about the smashed-up car, Tom Hagen said (along the lines of) "it was an accident, nobody was hurt".  Does this mean that Coppola was trying to tell us that Appolonia's death was unimportant and "it was an accident"?

I think so.
In Alisha's blog (http://alishaenglish10.blogspot.com/2010/12/significance-of-broken-car.html), she said that she thought that the accident was referring to Kay, and as we know, that is not the case.

Another Idea about the Scarlet Woman

Talking about the Scarlet Women with my mum, she said something that made the class' idea of the Scarlet Woman and Kay to be a little inconsistent.  She made a good point that red or scarlet, is usually the colour for marriage, and not for whores.

This colour is associated in Chinese and Greek cultures.
In the Chinese culture the bride wears a red costume to represent luck and red keeps away evil spirits.
This was found on this website for further reading: http://www.chinabridal.com/etiquette/dress.htm

In the Greek culture, the bride wears a red (or yellow) veil to ward of evil spirits--same as the Chinese culture.
This was found on this website: http://www.life123.com/relationships/weddings/wedding-customs-traditions/greek-wedding-traditions.shtml

This makes sense because, in the end, Michael and Kay get married.  Then again, when Michael came back from Sicily (after the death of his wife Appolonia), he went to see Kay who was not wearing any red or scarlet at all.  This raises the question: If Kay was supposed to be like the Scarlet Woman from the Babylonia myths, then how does the (supposedly) 'whore' marry the hero?

Juxtiposition:

Juxtiposition is found during Michael and Apollina's wedding night, and the next scene with Sonny and his mistress.

Ford Coppila wanted the audience to see the comparison between the two brothers.

Michael is more respectful and traditional than Sonny.
Sonny is more rambunctious than Michael.