What is Really Eating Gilbert Grape?

 

Genre: drama, romance, tragedy

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? is the title. That is a pun. A pun is a line that has two meanings. We often use puns for titles. Shakespeare loved puns. 

1.      What is eating you? It means “What is bothering you?”

2.    His last name is Grape. Grape is a food that we eat.

3.    Alliteration. Repeat the first letter. We often do this for a title.

The movie is set in Iowa. That is in the middle of America. The writer is Peter Hedges. All of his books are about Iowa.

America has 50 states. I have been to 45 states. I have never been to Iowa.

 

We have two different Americas. Middle America and Coastal America.
Middle America is more conservative and poor.

Coastal America is more liberal, better educated and richer.

The Director is from Denmark. So we have an outsider’s view of American society.

Johnny Depp is doing the narration at the start.

This is DiCaprio’s second movie. He was nominated for an Oscar for his acting.

1993.

The reason the mother became so upset is the father committed suicide (killed himself). It is not so clear in the movie. But it is important in the book, because he couldn’t escape the sad, boring life in the small town. Now, Gilbert feels the same.

One other thing. Arnie is afraid to go in the basement. The reason is because his dad killed himself in the basement.

What’s eating Gilbert Grape? Means what is bothering him. There are many annoying things.

1.      Fat mother

2.    Simple (retarded) brother

3.    Obnoxious little sister

4.    Boring life in a small town that he cannot escape

5.    Dead father leaving him all the responsibility of a family he did not make or create

6.    Jealous older lover that is getting weirder and weirder

Another common theme in literature and film is called socio-economic reality.

We are controlled a lot by our job, education and how much money we make. Poor people may have less freedom because they can’t pay for the lives and things easily