What's Eating Gilbert Grape portrays a family dealing with the trials, misfortunes, and also great times of having a member with a disability. The Grape family consists of Gilbert, Ellen, Amy, Mama (Mrs.Grape), and of course, Arnie. They live in an isolated town of Endora in a house that seems to be in shambles since their father died, causing their mother’s depression and becoming morbidly obese. Considering that there is only one parent left, their family structure single parenting and trends in a laissez-faire family pattern. Gilbert Grape is the eldest child. He takes on the role of being the head of the family by working a full-time job at the town’s mini-grocery store providing for his siblings, special care for his disabled brother Arnie and homebound mother. Amy Grape is the second eldest and takes on the motherly role in the household while becoming their …show more content…
mother’s personal caretaker in the process. Arnie Grape is the third child who is developmentally challenged and requires special attention majority of the time. He stays closer to Gilbert, whom he also shares a special bond with. Ellen Grape is the youngest child, unhelpful, and badly behaved. She gains attention and importance from this position. Ellen’s immaturity is observed when their mother decides to finally get off the couch and enters the public eye for the first time in a very long time, in the attempt to retrieve Arnie from the police precinct. Mama (Bonnie) Grape is their mother and widow of Mr.Grape. Because of her depression from Mr.Grape’s death, she remained homebound, fixating herself on their living room couch while growing morbidly obese. Her obesity lead to her inability to fulfill her parental and maternal duties to her children. The Grape family has unique strengths, one of which is the love, care and support they have for each other despite of what they are going through and no matter how difficult they could become towards each other. Rather than growing into irresponsible individuals, the children adapted well over all into their roles. The children extended their understanding, patience and respect towards their mother. At the end of the day, they were all able to sit down and eat dinner as a family. They are a functional family because of their cohesion among each other and meeting each other’s need for love, belonging and security. An outside support for this family included Becky, whom Gilbert befriends and later on falling in-love with her.
Becky became Gilbert’s outlet from the stress of being head of the household and taking care of his siblings yet he always kept Arnie along his side while he was with Becky. Soon Arnie grows fond of Becky and began looking up to her like an older sister. Another outside support is Gilbert’s job that allowed him to take Arnie with him to work because they understood that Arnie is developmentally challenged requiring a lot of attention and Gilbert is the only breadwinner of the family. Stressors present include keeping up the house that their father built, how to financially support the household, caring for Arnie & a morbidly obese mother fixated on the livingroom couch because of great depression related to her husband’s death and harsh criticism from others within the town about her along with humor remarks referring to her as a “whale”. It was stressful for the siblings to live their lives normally because of having to mature faster than other children to adapt to their living
situation. Coping mechanisms of the Grape family differed from each other. Gilbert’s adaptive measure was spending time with Becky. He is able to reflect on his own wants and needs out of life asides caring for his family. Amy seems to put all her energy into cooking and cleaning simultaneously which could be her way of coping with their situation. If she keeps herself busy enough, then maybe she will not feel as affected. Even though it is a negative solution, Mrs.Grape’s coping mechanism was eating her way through her depression ultimately resulting in an unhealthy lifestyle and morbid obesity that incapacitated for years.
In the story, each character's mental and physical health changes, whether it is prominently obvious or not. Their health declines – whether it be a rapid decline, as in the father's case, or a graduating descent, like the the rest of the family – and they become older and less attached to the real world, more attached to each other. They retain their habits from the camp and it affects the way that they live amongst other people, in the outside world. The permanence of the changes is evident in each character and will strongly affect the way they live the rest of their life from that point.
The Grapes are a family living in a rural and economically depressed community. The members of the Grape family presently residing in the familial home consists of biological birth mother Bonnie Grape, who is unemployed and 54 years of age. Amy Grape, the eldest child, Unemployed and currently 34 years of age. Gilbert Grape, the eldest male sibling who is employed at a local grocery store and is currently 24, years of age. Arnie Grape is Gilbert’s younger brother and is presently turning 18 years of age. Arnie reaching his 18th birthday is considered to be somewhat of a triumph by the Grape family, as Arnie suffers from a debilitating medical condition that has not only kept him from achieving age appropriate developmental milestones but also threatens to shorten his life expectancy considerably. The youngest sibling Ellen Grape is currently employed at a local ice cream parlor and is 16 years of age.
It was times throughout the book the reader would be unsure if the children would even make it. For example, “Lori was lurching around the living room, her eyebrows and bangs all singed off…she had blisters the length of her thighs”(178).Both Lori and Jeannette caught fire trying to do what a parent is supposed to do for their child. Jeannette caught fire at the age of three trying to make hotdogs because her mother did not cook for her leaving Jeannette to spend weeks hospitalized. She was burnt so bad she had to get a skin graft, the doctors even said she was lucky to be alive. The children never had a stable home. They were very nomadic and a child should be brought up to have one stable home. No child should remember their childhood constantly moving. This even led to Maureen not knowing where she come from because all she can remember is her moving. The children had to explain to her why she looked so different is because where she was born. They told Maureen “she was blond because she’d been born in a state where so much gold have been mined, and she had blue eyes the color of the
Gilbert loves his mom, but she’s too much for him. Since Gilbert is the man of the house it’s up to him to take care of his family, which is a lot of pressure. At one point in the film Gilbert says, “I wanna be a good person.” This quote shows how much pressure Gilbert puts on himself to be a good person for his family. Gilbert’s family relies on him for so much and Gilbert does all he can to provide do to provide everything they want. All of the pressure of being relied on is a lot and starts to show up in his
When the parents run off without them and never come back for a long time, and when Uncle Trash scams the boys out of everything they own and takes off for days at a time, then sells their belongings and buys cigars and alcohol with the money he made. Growing up being forgotten about can have serious, long lasting effects on children. The author tries to portray the boys as being forgotten so the audience reading will understand that it is a serious issue. “During the knocking down nobody notices our mother. She is a flatfooted running rustle through the corn all burned up by the summer sun”. At the end of the story the mother finally returns to see her house burned down by the sons she left in the hands of their drunken
From being able to save up money to buy a car and move out to West Virginia and then leaving the responsibility of finances and income to her children, Rose Mary Wall’s helped put Jeanette and her siblings through a hard and tough childhood. Although, a debate could be made that with all the awful impacts that the mother had on her children, all she really did was actually positively influence them to be able to conquer any hardship that they may face in their life. In the end, Rose Mary Wall’s character of being independent, unreasonable, and stubborn did both positively and negatively impact her children’s lives through the hardships they all faced
Throughout the film, we learn that each woman has setbacks within her household. One sister has a terrible drinking problem and ultimately loses her job due to excessive drinking and tardiness. The second sister has had several pregnancies that each result in miscarriages due to high stress. As a therapist, there are several different elements to review.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, is a movie directed by Lasse Hallstrom in 1993. Leonardo Dicaprio and Johnny Depp, play Arnie and Gilbert, two brothers who have a bond unlike any other. Arnie is autistic and it is Gilbert’s role in the family to lead him through each step in his life, whether it be the simplest of tasks or the most complex process, Gilbert is there. The title itself is a question that is not rhetorical, but rather a question the viewer must answer themselves. Gilbert appears to have the burden of being the father figure in Arnie’s life. Gilbert must keep Arnie in line and perform standards up to Arnie deserves. With a father that has passed away and an absent mother, Gilbert
In the film "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" directed by Lasse Hallstrom in 1993, one of the main ideas is that of struggle and hardship. This idea is significant to the film because it relates to each character in a different way, making the storyline more interesting. Three different techniques used by Lasse Hallstrom to illustrate the idea of struggle and hardship include Gilberts voice over, the extra close-ups of Bonnie as she climbs the stairs and the double up of dialogue, where Mrs Carver is talking to Gilbert, and Mr Carver is heard tying to entertain their children in background.
Each person in the family starts to develop a job or rule that that play in the family that others can’t really fill. For example Jeannette and Brain’s relationship with each other are almost stronger than anyone in the family. The role that Brain plays is the one that is extremely quiet unless with his family and even though he is a younger sibling he sees it as his goal to protect Jeannette, even if it evolves fighting older bigger girls but if it’s for his family he will do it. Lori is always lost in a book but he is like the mother of the family even though their real mother is around. Their father is bright man that the kids get to see from time to time but then there alcoholic father appears and that’s when problems arise. When it comes to functioning at younger ages they were almost completely dependent on their parents like all kids are, as they started to reach teenage they started to rely less on their parents and more on each other. They started to get their own jobs, when they needed resources they would rather depend on each other or themselves. The communication was free for the kids if they had a question or a problem they would voice their concerns but the only time they didn’t was when they saw that their father was drinking or was drunk. They left the
The author clearly shows how his childhood effected his adulthood, making in a living example of what he is writing about allowing the audience to more easily trust what he is writing about. Instead of using factually evidence from other dysfunctional family incidences, the author decides to make it more personal, by using his own life and comparing family ideas of the past to the present.
After watching the movie “What’s eating Gilbert Grape” it focuses more on Gilbert Grape than any other characters in the movie. Gilbert Grape is a young man who resides in a small community called Endora. Gilbert at the beginning of the movie states “Describing Endora is like dancing to no music”. Gilbert’s youngest brother Arnie is soon to be 18 years old and has a developmental disability that never was disclosed in the movie. Furthermore, Bonnie Gilbert’s mother has been locked in her own home since her husband committed suicide seven years ago. Moreover, Bonnie is at the stage of stagnation. She is over-weighted and doesn’t think of doing anything for herself or for any of her children. Therefore, leaving Gilbert with the full responsibility of caring for his family especially Arnie.
Jeannette Walls states in an interview “My mother could not take care of herself, how could I possibly expect her to take care of me?” (Diversity Conversation) She never takes responsibility or has the initiative to go out and make a better life for her and her children. Rose Mary uses guilt and verbal abuse to keep the children “in line,” so to speak. Rex even resorts to physical abuse after Rose Mary snitches on Jeannette. “‘How dare you?’ she shouted. ‘You’re in trouble now — big trouble. I’m telling your dad. Just you wait until he comes home’” (219). As neglected as they are, they somehow survive the crazy conditions they are forced to live with — lack of food, water, a stable shelter, lack of personal hygiene, and even lack of parental supervision. Lori, Jeannette, Brian and Maureen resort to the worst possible ways to keep themselves alive. For example, the three older children find a stick of margarine in the refrigerator and split the stick between each other because they are so hungry. When Rose Mary finds out ,she becomes very angry — stating that the margarine was for her. Another time, the kids want to eat ham, but find it infested with maggots, Rose Mary tells them to just cut off the parts with maggots and eat the rest. That it will be “fine.” “A big green Dumpster stood in the parking lot. When no one was looking, Brian and I pushed open the lid, climbed up, and dived inside to search for bottles. I was afraid it might be full of yucky garbage. Instead, we found an astonishing treasure: cardboard boxes filled with loose chocolates. Some of them were whitish and dried-out-looking, and some were covered with a mysterious green mold, but most of them were fine. We pigged out on chocolates,” (110). This just shows how desperate they were for food. At the same time, their mother is hiding food from them, eating it on the sly. “‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m a sugar
Since Sister was affected the most by certain actions of the family, Welty narrated this short story through Sister’s point of view to show how the function of the family declined through these actions. Sister was greatly affected when her sister broke the bonds of sisterhood by stealing her boyfriend and marrying him. Secondly, Sister was affected by the favoritism shown by her family towards her younger sister. Since her sister was favored more than her, this caused her to be jealous of her sister. For example, Sister shows a lot of jealousy by the tone she uses when describing what Stella-Rondo did with the bracelet that their grandfather gave her. Sister’s description was, “She’d always had anything in the world she wanted and then she’d throw it away. Papa-Daddy gave her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when sh...
The Grape family wasn't the perfect nuclear family by any means of the word. But they did stand together through hardships and tribulations that the family faced. It wasn't easy for Gilbert to be the primary provider at a young age for his family and not able to explore life. Even Amy gave up a lot of her social life to take over the mother role. The family made it through all the problems that they faced by sticking together and forming a greater bond. Even with the death of Bonnie on Arnie 18th birthday and the burning down of their only house, they still stuck together. The death of their mother open up a door of freedom, even if this does sound wrong in context. But the children where free to navigate their lives and build stronger bonds. The love was their throughout the family and that's what truly matters at the end.