| Finding | Evidence | Interpretation | |---|---|---| | | Literature : “Medea” (Euripides), The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner); Cinema : Psycho (Hitchcock), The Kids Are All Right (Glenn). | Mothers are alternately the source of life‑affirming love and the origin of oedipal conflict. | | Maternal sacrifice as narrative catalyst | Literature : “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (Tolstoy), Beloved (Morrison). Cinema : The Pianist (Polanski). | The mother’s willingness to sacrifice (or be sacrificed) drives plot and moral resolution. | | Maternal absence/abandonment as a catalyst for male self‑construction | Literature : The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger); Cinema : Kramer vs. Kramer (Mamet). | Absence forces sons to negotiate autonomy, often reproducing patriarchal patterns. | | Maternal figures as cultural symbols | Literature : One Hundred Years of Solitude (María), The God of Small Things (Ammu). Cinema : Roma (Cecilia), Parasite (Yeon‑gyo). | Mother characters embody national, ethnic, and class narratives. | | Shift from archetypal to fragmented, intersectional portrayals post‑1990 | Literature : White Teeth (Zadie Smith), A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara). Cinema : Moonlight (Barry Jenkins), Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda). | Contemporary works foreground race, sexuality, disability, and transgenerational trauma, breaking monolithic “mother‑son” binaries. |

Cinema has also provided a platform for exploring the complexities of mother-son relationships. Some notable examples include: