rdfs:comment
| - Born in 1916, Sonia Kaspbrak is the overweight, domineering mother of Eddie Kaspbrak. Her husband, Eddie's father, died of cancer in 1951, and since then Sonia has kept Eddie on a short physical and psychological leash, almost to the point of deliberately weakening him to maximize her level of control. She is a regular customer in Norbert Keene's pharmacy, who provides Eddie's asthma medicine, until Keene attempts to explain to Eddie that his medicine is a placebo and that his sickness has psychological roots and is nurtured by his mother. Sonia proves to be a divisive force with respect to the Losers' club, an obstacle that is only overcome when Eddie, in a hospital bed with a newly broken arm, finally "stands up" to her and declares that his friends are a good influence on him, not a bad
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abstract
| - Born in 1916, Sonia Kaspbrak is the overweight, domineering mother of Eddie Kaspbrak. Her husband, Eddie's father, died of cancer in 1951, and since then Sonia has kept Eddie on a short physical and psychological leash, almost to the point of deliberately weakening him to maximize her level of control. She is a regular customer in Norbert Keene's pharmacy, who provides Eddie's asthma medicine, until Keene attempts to explain to Eddie that his medicine is a placebo and that his sickness has psychological roots and is nurtured by his mother. Sonia proves to be a divisive force with respect to the Losers' club, an obstacle that is only overcome when Eddie, in a hospital bed with a newly broken arm, finally "stands up" to her and declares that his friends are a good influence on him, not a bad one. He discloses Mr. Keene's assertion that his asthma medicine is a placebo, and agrees to keep using it anyway (thereby maintaining the false pretense of his asthma) in exchange for the continued opportunity to be with his friends. The "Other" may have been working directly through Eddie during this scene, endowing him with power he might otherwise not have had. Sonia, who never ceases to suspect the deaths of their young behind every corner, gets fatter over time. When she, in 1980 at the age of 64, died of a heart attack, she weighed 406 pounds (184 kg) at the time of her death. Her lasting psychological impact on her only son is deep; the woman Eddie eventually marries, Myra, is a mirror image of his mother in both body and mind.
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