58 pages • 1 hour read
Peter HedgesWhat's Eating Gilbert Grape
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Suicide’s Impact on Loved Ones
Suicide is introduced to this novel in two different ways: Albert's hanging and Bonnie's compulsive overeating. Albert dies more than 17 years before the opening of the novel. He is reported to have been a happy man who always had a kind word for those around him. However, the family struggles to reconcile these memories and stories with the way in which he died. Bonnie and the children are left with the task of supporting themselves without him, as well as the struggle to manage the feelings of guilt and abandonment that accompany his death. The Grape children live under the shadow of not only their only emotions regarding their father’s death but also of the memory of Albert that still lives in the minds of their friends and neighbors in their small town.
In the aftermath of her husband’s death, Bonnie, who was pregnant at the time of Albert’s death, is consumed with grief. She is left to raise six children, the last of whom is diagnosed as intellectually disabled. Gilbert reveals that his mother was once a very beautiful woman who had many potential suitors when she was younger, some of whom sought her out again in the aftermath of her husband’s death. Rather than remarry, Bonnie turns inward, becoming a hermit as she begins to hide herself behind the weight she gains over the subsequent years. At the same time, Bonnie’s children perform the parental roles in the household. Larry and Janice become the breadwinners, sending money home every month. Amy becomes the mother figure, doing the housework and all the cooking in addition to taking charge of the younger children when she isn’t working as a teacher’s aide. Gilbert also takes charge of the younger children, most often focusing his attention on Arnie. Gilbert also helps Amy with chores and donates his salary from Lamson Grocery to help with the household bills.
Gilbert observes his mother and the significant amount of weight she gained following Albert’s death, especially the last three or four years, and he understands that she has given up on living. He reflects on the food that he provides his mother through his job at Lamson Grocery and feels guilty for contributing to her slow demise. When she dies, he finds himself thinking, “I wish I’d thrown food out earlier. Maybe if we’d thrown it out earlier, maybe if I had quit the grocery store. Maybe” (310). Echoing the sense of responsibility that he feels for his father's death, because his teacher prevented him from going home to check on him, Gilbert is filled with guilt due to his inaction following the loss of his mother. Many "if onlys" consume Gilbert’s thoughts regarding the deaths of his parents. In this way, suicide has a lasting impact on Gilbert, shaping his life by keeping him rooted in Endora, leaving him with a sense of responsibility for the lives of his parents, and forcing him into a caretaker role at an early age.
Different Forms of Escape
The longing to escape is a major theme of the novel and consistently plagues Gilbert. From the opening pages, Gilbert mentions that he is one of only four people who remain in Endora after graduating high school, and two of those who were left behind are there only because they were injured in a near-fatal car accident. When Gilbert asks Mrs. Carver why she chose to have an affair with him, she says she knew he would “never leave [his] family” (97). The idea bothers him, making him feel even more trapped than he did before. His feeling that he is missing out is also illustrated by Lance Dodge, who not only left Endora but also became a minor celebrity as a television reporter. Gilbert remembers Lance as a tattletale in his second-grade class and has little respect for him; he holds him responsible for his inability to go home and save his father on the day he died.
Gilbert’s frustration at being unable to leave Endora is compounded by the fact that two of his siblings successfully left home. Janice has a bachelor's degree in psychology and works as a flight attendant. Larry doesn’t tell the family what he does for a living, but he sends home large checks, so Gilbert assumes he is successful in whatever he does. In Gilbert’s mind, Janice and Larry escaped and left the rest of them to deal with the day-to-day struggles of raising their younger siblings and caring for their increasingly-disabled mother. While Gilbert feels trapped and struggles with the frustrations of his situation, he loves his family and would feel tremendous guilt if he left. When modern conveniences come to Endora in the form of Food Land and Burger Barn, Gilbert feels uneasy, even threatened. When he stops at a Burger Barn on his way to Des Moines, he walks out without ordering because the worker is impatient and rude. Despite his resentment at feeling confined to Endora, Gilbert likes the familiarity and comfort of his small town. However, these feelings exist in tension with his contempt for the gossip and lack of secrets that are inherent to such an intimate community.
Escape takes many forms in this novel. While Gilbert fails to escape his hometown, his brother and sister leave but are constantly drawn back to it. Albert and Bonnie escape, but only through death. Mr. Carver, who perpetuates the image of a happy family but is violent with his children and involved in a mutually-unfaithful marriage, also escapes only through death. His widow leaves town the moment she is free from her marriage, leaving Gilbert behind; she clung to him because he would reliably remain in the town where she also felt trapped, but abandons him as soon as she finds the opportunity to leave. Lance escaped Endora as well but returns to town to enjoy the ego boost of his status as a local celebrity. Only Gilbert sees through him and understands that he is simply a local television reporter, not the movie star or influential journalist he imagines himself to be. The escapes that are showcased in this novel are partial and emotionally complex, come at the cost of pain, or are achieved only through death, unlike the liberating changes that Gilbert imagines.
Dysfunctional Families
Gilbert sees the Grape family as dysfunctional. In fact, he thinks of his family as some sort of carnival sideshow. He understands that people in town talk about his family quite often and assumes most of the gossip is not kind. It annoys him to be associated with the Grape name when he is in town. However, he is also fiercely loyal to his siblings and mentions on several occasions that he would kill for them. This is particularly true in the case of his youngest brother; he says, “No one hurts Arnie” (75) multiple times throughout the novel.
Gilbert’s family survives by creating a nontraditional structure. His mother fails to sustain the role of head of the family after her husband's death, eventually relying on her own children to parent her. Amy assumes the role of mother, in addition to working and taking care of the house. Gilbert does not fully become a father figure, but he picks up many of the tasks that would normally fall to a father and helps provide financial support for the household. There is significant suffering in the Grape household due to sustained grief and Bonnie’s abdication of her responsibilities; these issues are coupled with the struggles of raising a child with an intellectual disability and a teenage girl. This is more responsibility than Gilbert is ready to handle at his age, and Amy feels as though her life is passing her by because of her responsibilities to the family. The family's dysfunction underlies each member's choices and motivations.
The Grape family is not the only dysfunctional family in the novel. The Carvers have a miserable home life: Betty feels unloved and as though she cannot do anything right for her husband, and Ken is demanding and primarily concerned with the way his family is perceived by outsiders. The Carvers appear to be a happy, successful family, but both parents are having affairs. Ken is also overbearing, pushing his opinions on his wife in order to control her every action. Her rebellion against this behavior is evident, for example, when Gilbert looks back on his relationship with Mrs. Carver: He remembers that her husband denounced chocolate for his children, but she allows them to buy it on the way to his funeral. Her rejection of his authority is also evident in her choice to relocate; Mrs. Carver chooses to take her children to St. Louis because her husband disliked that city.
These two families contrast within the novel. The Carvers appear to be the perfect American family, while the Grapes are noticeably burdened with tragedy after tragedy. However, the Grapes are more emotionally connected to one another than the Carvers are. Although the Grapes are occasionally cruel to one another, they demonstrate unity in moments like Arnie's birthday and their collective response to Bonnie's death, and they lack the manipulation of one another that becomes evident in the Carver family's spiteful dynamic.
