Raising Arizona – Leonard Smalls analysis Part 1.

 

Biker from Hell

Just after his prison buddies, the Snoats brothers, visit him H.I. has a vision of a biker.

The biker emerges from hell-fire.

He is literally bringing hell with him.

H.I. calls him as a “biker of the apocalypse”. most likely a reference to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

It is implied that the biker is an actual demon or maybe even the devil himself.

The biker seems to have some “mommy issues”.

The Biker is a force of destruction.

As he passes by a flower, the flower spontaneously catches fire.

Remember what H.I. said to Edwina earlier:

I believe that this symbolizes the threat the Biker will be to Edwina.

Even though H.I. claims he doesn’t know from where the biker came…

… he seems to believe that he himself had unleashed him.

The biker is described almost as a karmic force of vengeance.

It is my belief that the Biker is a manifestation of H.I. guilty consciousness that haunts him because of  the kidnapping of baby Nathan Junior. The Biker is also a karmic revenge for H.I. wrongdoings , the one that H.I. subconsciously knows is rightfully coming to him.

In the next post I’ll talk about the similarities between the biker and H.I.

Raising Arizona’s career criminals

During his stay in prison H.I. meets Gale and Evelle Snoats.

They seem to take pride in their crime and consider it a real career. During the prison therapy they say:

After their escape we find out they are actually burglars:

 

Escape of evil

Their escape from prison is  a symbolical birth of evil.

It takes place during a storm in the middle of the night.

Gale is the the first one to emerge from the mud.

He then pulls out Evelle. A breech birth of evil?

The Snoats brothers are apparently a reference to the Snopes family from the works of William Faulkner.

In the movie they escape from the prison just after the kidnapping of the baby Nathan Junior. They represent the uglier part of H.I. mind, his criminal instincts reemerging.

They are literally and symbolically shitty people.

 

Return to prison

The Snoats escape from prison just as H.I. returns to a life of crime ….

…and they go back to prison when H.I. gives up his criminal ways.

After H.I. and Ed decide to return baby Nathan Junior to his parents H.I. has a dream in which he sees the Snoats brothers returning to prison.

In a reverse of their escape they return to prison in broad daylight.

As Gale and Evelle go down the hole back to prison they are symbolically returning to their rightful place in the deeper parts of H.I. subconscious. There is no longer a place for them in H.I. life.