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What's Eating Gilbert Grape Analysis

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What's Eating Gilbert Grape Analysis
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape Essay?

In the spoken text What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Gilbert is presented as a complex person neither good or totally bad. Due to his family Gilbert is thinking more about his family rather than himself. He says he wants heaps of different things for his family but only to be a good person for himself. Throughout the spoken text we (the audience) see Becky make Gilbert think more about himself rather than his family.

In the most obvious physical sense, Gilbert is already good. He works at Lamson’s Grocery store. Gilbert works there so he can earn money and buy food from there. If he didn’t have his job there the family wouldn’t have any food to eat. Another thing that Gilbert takes care of is the household …show more content…
Gilbert both loves and resents his family at times, particularly his mother Bonnie and brother Arnie. Gilbert loves his mother but resents her as she used to be beautiful. He commonly refers to her as a “beached whale” and “fat” as he is frustrated and annoyed with her. If Bonnie wasn’t as fat, Gilbert would love her more and not be as upset or angry. Gilbert also loves Bonnie and we see this when, she dies upstairs of the family home and Gilbert burnt the house down to stop the embarrassment for the family and to maintain Bonnie’s dignity. The only way they would have got Bonnie out of the house is by a crane a she was so big. Gilbert did the right thing by burning the house down. Gilbert resents Arnie as he needs constant supervision and care it means Gilbert doesn’t have much free time so he doesn’t have much of a social life. If Gilbert had more free time he might have had a real job and social life but as he is so tied down with Arnie he can’t have any of this. Gilbert also loves Arnie though as they have a really good friendship and get along really well. An example of Gilbert and Arnie having such a good friendship is when Arnie climbs up the water tower and Gilbert talks him into coming down when he hadn’t made it to the top yet. Another example that shows us that Gilbert loved Arnie is after Bonnie had died Gilbert continued to look after Arnie. If Gilbert and Arnie didn’t have a good friendship
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