In literature, works like The Color Purple by Alice Walker and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz feature similar explorations of the mother-son relationship as a reflection of societal norms and expectations. In The Color Purple , Celie Harris's (Whoopi Goldberg) relationship with her son is a central theme, highlighting the complex web of oppression, resistance, and survival that shapes the lives of African American women in the early 20th century. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao , Oscar de León's (Oscar Isaac) relationship with his mother is a powerful example of the tensions between cultural identity, family history, and individual desire.
Recent works reject sentimentality. (2021 film, based on Elena Ferrante’s novel) shows a mother who abandons her young daughters—her son is barely mentioned, highlighting how the mother-son bond is often mediated through the daughter’s perspective. In Justin Torres’s We the Animals , a young boy worships his volatile mother, but her inability to protect him from his brothers’ cruelty forces his psychological split. The film The Babadook (2014) uses horror to literalize maternal ambivalence: a widowed mother struggles not to kill her troubled son, and only by acknowledging her rage can she love him safely.
The most profound theme across all these works is the tragedy of necessary separation. A son cannot remain a son. He must become a man—a lover, a father, an independent agent. And that act of becoming often requires a symbolic patricide or, more painfully, a symbolic matriphagy (killing the mother’s influence).