The Mafia Gangster in American Crime Fiction: an analysis of the phenomenon of the mafia with reference to 'The Godfather', 'Goodfellas' and 'The Sopranos'

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Cologne (English Department 1), course: The Official World, language: English, abstract: The genre of crime fiction comprises several subgenres and is only an umbrella term for literature about crime that originated particularly in Great Britain and the United States in a time ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. When people are confronted with the genre of crime fiction, they usually associate it with detective fiction or crime thrillers. Some of the most popular writers of crime fiction are Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler and Edgar Allan Poe and their inventions of such characters as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Philip Marlowe (Priestman 2003: preface). These works have shaped our understanding of crime literature profoundly and influenced the emergence of other crime fiction genres and their authors. On these grounds this essay will mainly focus on the emergence of a crime genre that is concerned with the American gangster and the myth of the mafia. To be more precise, I will concentrate on the mafia gangster in the United States and analyze his way to success and power. To better understand the phenomenon of the mafia gangster, I will give a brief account of American crime fiction followed by a description of the typical ingredients a successful crime novel has to have. Afterwards, I will present some information on the American gangster in general and explain the circumstances that facilitated his career in organized crime to become such an important part of American culture. Then I will proceed with the sudden appearance of the mafia gangster in the United States and comment on the etymology of the term mafia in order to explain how he became so important to the American culture. After the background information has been covered by the first three chapters, I will go on with the analysis of the phenomenon of the mafia in literature and on television. Therefore, the very popular contributions to the mafia genre produced by Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and David Chase will be discussed. The Godfather, Goodfellas and The Sopranos will be the main subjects of interest to show how these works contributed to a general understanding of the mafia in the second half of the twentieth century. Finally, I will give a short account of the decline of the mafia in organized crime within the United States before the Conclusion will be presented.