"What's Eating Gilbert Grape"

Paper Summary:

This paper explores life in small town America as seen through the eyes of 24-year-old Gilbert Grape. Peter Hedges's novel "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" details the Grape family which revolves around Momma, a woman who copes with her husband's suicide by remaining in the safe confines of her home where she suppresses her pain with food. Gilbert begins as the narrator, passively going through life waiting for something wonderful to happen to him while waiting to get out of Endora.
This paper also discusses how Gilbert grapples with his love and simultaneous hatred for his family stemming from his bitterness about his predicament.

From the Paper:

"Gilbert feels a keen sense of loyalty to his siblings and to mother, and has an intense feeling of obligation as a family member to care for them. But despite the loyalty and his sense of duty, he resents them for holding him back from being what he yearns to be: himself, but independent and free of the burden he has undertaken in caring for his troublesome brother and enabling his mother in her self-destructive binge. His reluctance in undertaking this responsibility is underscored by his repeated abandoning of Arnie, giving him amble opportunity to get into trouble (including one short bout of imprisonment)."

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