Characterization: Raising Eyre-izona

       Of all the films Nicolas Cage has starred in, one of his earliest ,and most adored films, is "Raising Arizona". The film follows an ex-con by the name of H.I. McDunnough, Nicolas Cage, and his ex-cop wife named Ed, Holly Hunter, as they begin to yearn for a family. When it is discovered that Ed cannot conceive a child, the couple plots to steal a baby. The pair decide to kidnap one of the quintuplets of the furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona. H.I. and Ed try to keep their crime a secret, but friends, family, and a bounty-hunter plan to use the baby for their own purpose. There are many parallels between Jane Eyre and H.I. McDunnough. During Jane's childhood, she hated her cousins and aunt with a passion, she even goes as far as directly saying: "I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence; however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as above"(33). As Jane grew and experienced more in life, she realized that she could not hate her family forever and forgives her aunt while she is on her death bed by saying: "Love me, then, or hate me, as you will, you have my full and free forgiveness" (243). Jane shows how much she has changed since she was a girl just by committing this act of forgiveness. By looking back on her experiences and learning from the past, Jane became a better person. Just as Jane did, H.I. McDunnough became a better person over the course of his story. When we first meet H.I., he is shown being arrested for several crimes he had committed. As the story progresses, we see that H.I. has given up being a con to support his family, because family is the most important thing to him. Both Jane and H.I. are static characters and are shown to be through the changes that happen to them throughout their stories.