Gilbert Grape

Throughout the film, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Gilbert is trapped by family and life. He has to take care of his younger brother, Arnie, all the time as though he is Arnie's dad. He is trapped with all the duties of a full-time caretaker for his younger brother on-top of normal, everyday family duties. He is trapped in the job of taking care of his mother, he and his two sisters take care of their mother as though she is another child in the family. With their mother being unable to perform many household duties anymore, her children are stuck performing the duties of a parent. Gilbert is also trapped in an affair with a married woman. He put himself in that position out of boredom and need of an escape, but it became another thing he was trapped in when the woman became emotionally invested, even though he was not. All these life circumstances trap Gilbert into places that aren't exactly the best.

Overtime, being trapped will kill anyone. The themes of death and life are very prominent on the family. The first death in the family was of their dad. Their dad committed suicide before the film began, but his death starts off a chain of metaphorical deaths in the family. Of course the dad's death wasn't really when he physically died. As Gilbert says to Becky about his father's death "it was like he was dead long before he actually died". This is the kind of emotional death that the members of the family live with. Gilbert lives with this kind of death, a slow decay of being trapped by his life. Becky says to Gilbert "I knew a guy like that once" Referring to Gilbert and how he was just as dead as his father.  His mom also suffered through emotional death, she died when her husband died and she lost all emotional capability other than to sit and watch TV day after day, needing a constant escape from her reality. The concept of death is very prominent amongst this family, however at the end of the film they all learn to break free and live.