so at the end of 'whats eating gilbert grape?'...

they burn down the house with the dead mother in it because they don't want her being made a spectacle of. my question however is.. what would happen to a human body of that size in a fire? is it possible it could totally burn gone? would there be some kind of residue left?

 

its possible intense heat could totally burn a body up, bone and all.. But A trained investigation would be able to find a body in a fire. If they were looking for it.. Ash would be different. metal parts (jewelery or medical implants can be found..
cremations makes a cup of ash out of a human being..
Why do you want to know?? :_)

 

have you seen the movie? do you know what person i'm talking about? she was a big lady.. several hundred pounds. do they (can they) even cremate extremely obese folks?

 

ya of course it would. it doesn't take to long for a body to be cremated. no matter what the size is. have you ever put a steak on the bbq? notice how the fat drips out. Well thats not even as hot as it would be in a house that's literally ablaze.

 

Tough to get rid of bones. Sometimes they shrink after being in a fire. Makes it look like it was a smaller person that died. Probably the softer material in bone gets burned up but the ceramic-type stuff survives.

I'm surely not an expert in forensics.

.

 

they removed all the things from the house before setting it a blaze.. i assume this with make the fire burn a shorter time? lower heat?

the body was on a bed on the second story ...

 

What the fuck!? fucking serial killer... more worried about Shaggie's post actually...

 

because the womens body mass in mostly made of fat and flammable material. I would thank yes, even the fat person would fry up .. /but I would have to say that given that mass and fire approaching from below it would collapse the floor and enhance the evidence for investigations ..

 

yeah, I wondered that myself at the end of the movie. Yet like the majority of her was fat and not muscle so most likely the fat burned away and she only if any thing had the bones to burn....plus I always wondered where they all planned to live after burning their house down.

I figure that Gilbert and his new Girlfriend will take Arnie to wherever it is they go and the older sister will movie in with her boyfriend, which still leaves the younger sister. I think they should have extended the ending. Also I was wondering if that would be considered Arson to set a house on fire?

I read the book and at the end of the book it didn't give much more of an explanation.

Oh and in the book , I can recall in the movie, Gilbert's friend worked for his dad in a funeral home or mortuary and he heard of the horrible things that went on there and how they made fun of the dead and so he didn't want his mom to be put through that at a funeral home.

I had a friend that died and she was not quite as big as mama but when they did her funeral they did not or could not afford enough embalming fluid to fill her up and she did not look like herself as she turned skinny after she was embalmed. Like she looked skinny and was very obese when she died.