Gilbert Grape By Peter Hedges

In Peter Hedges’ written drama, the eponymous Gilbert Grape is stuck in his hometown of Endora to be the sole caretaker of his atypical family. Gilbert’s father had committed suicide and left him with this responsibility. Shaken by the death of her husband, Gilbert’s mother, Bonnie, stops leaving the house and sits on the couch all day watching television. As a result, she grew extremely obese. With some help from his two sisters, Ellen and Amy, Gilbert takes care of his extremely obese mother and his vulnerable brother, Arnie. Arnie Grape suffers from Autism, which means that life is a constant stress on the whole family, not just him. Gilbert has to keep constant watch on Arnie to protect him from being bullied for being different and also

This is obvious in two instances. The first was when Arnie attended a burial for one of the townspeople. Arnie was playing and laughing while the burial ceremony went on. He fails to comprehend that it is a sad situation. The second instance was when he got arrested for climbing the water tower. While he was being taken to the cop car he cheerfully asked the cop to turn on the siren. Even as he is being driven away, he happily waves to his brother from the back of the cop car. Arnie lacks the cognitive ability to comprehend the seriousness of such situations. Related to this is Arnie’s lack of theory of mind. He does not realize that climbing the tower is scary for his family, neither does he comprehend that the cops were furious at him for bringing them down to the water tower once again. Another example of his lack of theory of mind is when he caused his sister to drop his birthday cake and then eats the replacement cake after he was warned against doing so. Subsequently, Arnie runs around the house laughing as Gilbert chases him, while the rest of his family almost comes to tears. Arnie’s behavior proves two things. First, he has a deficit in his executive functioning, as he is unable to regulate his behavior by eating the cake. Second, Arnie is unable to process social-emotional information as he laughs after seeing his family clearly distraught. Arnie also displays qualitative language

Arnie falls among the 70% of autistic children that have a co-occurring intellectual impairment. For instance, at the start of the movie, we can hear Arnie counting, or rather attempting to count. He says, “5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 19, 17…” For a 17 year old, this shows a massive deficit in academic learning. Although, we can make the argument that he did not have the chance to learn to count. From the nature of the movie, it can be inferred that Arnie was taken out of school at a very young age, especially with the belief that he would die early anyways. Arnie also uses the word “drownded” a lot. Although throughout the movie no one corrects him, it is safe to say it would not have mattered, as he rarely learns from experiences. Because he meets all of these criteria, I believe Arnie has Autism.

A limited or lack of social reciprocity is said to be the cornerstone of the problems in Autism Spectrum Disorder but Arnie is by far the most social character in the movie. When some kids were attempting to sneak a peek at his obese mother, he interacts with them and asks if they would like to play with him. Also, when a couple of boys came into the store where his brother worked, he rushes towards them and tells them about the best candies in the store. Arnie even single-handedly invites a boy to his own party. Behaviors like that are next to rare in kids with Autism, it does not quite