In 1969, The Godfather by Mario Puzo was first published and gained an enormous success. It became the best seller and has captivated millions of readers in the world through a crime story of the Corleone family. Many comments have been given to the novel by readers. In the article "The Godfather: How to Survive in a Cruel World," Ron Wilson has a profound view when he infers the theme of how people survive and protect their family in a cruel world full of brutality and injustice, and how they succeed in that corrupt society. Wilson also proves that The Godfather highlights human's own values. That is, each person has his or her own values, and he or she should keep these values, but not the values of society or others. To the Corleone Family, the two most important values are family and friendship. Those who do not respect these two values will fail or be destroyed. And for people just with faith or passivity, they will gain nothing. To survive, they have to fight for their destiny. Based on destiny and personality of characters in the novel, Wilson reaffirms the novel's thesis about survival and how to survive in such a cruel world like mafia world, and that may be the reason why The Godfather makes it one of best sellers.
I agree with Wilson that The Godfather discloses the evils of a severe society and how harshly people have to fight to survive, but to say that this is the theme of the novel is seemingly not true. I do not think the purpose when Puzo writes this novel is to tell the reader how to survive and how to succeed by violence and murdering each other. In my opinion, I comprehend the theme in another way. That is, whoever you are (a politician, a civilian, or a gangster); you have the right to have your own values, and your values makes you be yourself. A moral man loves his family and his friends, so does a gangster. And to a gangster, he can still respect his values, but he must not be passive because passivity is killing himself.