Our family is one of the most important things to human beings. We love them, we talk with them, and we always fight with them at some point. Many kids grow up with some sort of family or relatives. They're the type of people who can be such a pain to deal with sometimes, and those relatives may feel the same way about them. Becoming mad at relatives doesn't change the fact that they are family and you still love them no matter what happens.
The book, "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" by Peter Hedges, relates to how much of a pain family can be. It mostly focuses on the issue about people wanting and needing a family to grow up with. Once in a while, people will release anger on their loved ones and this book proves why it's normal to not be able to control anger at family members.
It's about an early twenty years old guy name Gilbert Grape, who lived in a small town with a big family. The father committed suicide because he couldn't handle the pressure that was given to take care of the family. The mother, Bonnie Grape, was morbidly obese, basically eating herself to death because of her depression after the father died. All she did since her husband's suicide, was sit around the house, eat, sleep, and watch TV.
There were two sisters in the family, Amy and Ellen. Amy was the oldest and she was like a mother to the family. She fed and cleaned the house, so she was more of a homemaker than a sister. Ellen was the pretty, but cocky sister. She's the youngest and most of the time, she would get annoyed, easily. Gilbert and Ellen hated each others guts and they were always fighting. This is one of the big examples about sometimes hating your family members.
So then lastly, there is Arnie Grape. Probably the most lovable character in the book. He might not be the main character, but he has such a big impact to the story. Arnie is a mentally challenged teenager who is about to become eighteen years old. The doctor tells the family that it would be lucky if Arnie was able to live up to ten years of age.
The biggest idea of What's Eating Gilbert Grape, is the brother to brother relationship, Gilbert and Arnie have. Gilbert Grape would take care of Arnie most of the time. He bathed him, talked to him, gave him attention because someone like Arnie would need attention. The funniest scene in the story, is when Gilbert thought Arnie would be able to clean and wash himself in the bath while he would do something else. Arnie doesn't exactly have a brain to think, and he didn't have the confidence to bathe himself. So Gilbert basically left him in the bath overnight, and he found Arnie shivering in the bath tub the next morning. After that, Arnie had a fear from taking baths and he chose to be dirty and disgusting for weeks. I found that hysterically funny.
Gilbert becomes easily frustrated when he tried to take care of Arnie and he's a bit of a mean guy. When it comes to his personal behavior with the outside world, he made some foolish decisions. He purposely helped a women cheat on her husband and he would not be able to control Arnie when he kept trying to climb up a water tower. There were many flaws with Gilbert's personality, but his heart was in the right place. Gilbert took care of his family, and he tried to make his mother feel better about herself.
The mother is a character in the book, who you are supposed to feel bad for. Momma had trouble taking care of herself, and she never wanted to leave the house because she would feel embarrassed. In the story, there is a scene where the police locked up Arnie because the family couldn’t control him from climbing up a water tower. Momma exposed to public scrutiny to get her son back by leaving the house. She went to the police station and screamed at the sheriff for Arnie back. Momma's screaming was successful, but when she went outside, people were looking at her as if she was a creep. Little kids laughed and taunted her. Momma felt hurt, but she was happy because she had Arnie back home. Exposure would be terrible, but Momma had to do everything to get Arnie back. She didn't care if hundreds of people were laughing at her. This scene proved how strong a character the mother is. She is willing to expose herself in the outside world, for her own son.
What makes this book so great is how it explains that fighting with family is normal. Many conflicts that occur can be resolved with a simple apology, but some conflicts aren't that simple. When somebody makes a poor choice, he/she can't go back to the past to change what happened. People need to start living in the present, chill out for once, and find out how to fix a problem by acknowledging that what they did was wrong. That's exactly what happens in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Gilbert says, "Sometimes you want Arnie to live... and sometimes you don't." Which means that sometimes, I can't control Arnie for his obnoxious and disobedient behavior, but I just have to love him for who he is. He's my brother and I must love him, even if he gets on my nerves.
The real moral of What's Eating Gilbert Grape, is that no matter how much our parents and siblings can be such a pain, we still love them as much as ever. A family needs to stick together to work things out, instead of blindly arguing and fighting. It is normal for families to do that, but know your limits. Be patient and everything might work out. That is what the story was trying to point out. Families can have trouble getting along, but in heart, they can still care about each other more than anything else.
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