Photo Credits – “Jennifer Lawrence” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore
I always thought of Mother Earth as a separate entity of all other higher powers and especially separate from the belief in God because she is always depicted less religiously and more spiritually. In Darren Aronofsky’s allegorical psychological horror film “Mother!” (2017) starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, he illustrates Mother Earth and God as husband and wife who go through a series of fever-dream-like occurrences that symbolize the biblical stories of Creation. The movie knocked audiences off their feet with its disturbing images and controversial religious depictions.
The interesting part about this film is that up until about the last 25 minutes, the stories are as true to the Bible as you can get within this metaphorical world. In this allegory, God, portrayed through the husband, is a writer who desperately wants to create and craves appreciation for his work. Mother Earth, portrayed as the wife, does everything in her power to make her husband feel loved and comfortable. The audience learns that their current house is his former childhood home that burned down in a fire, so the wife rebuilt it by hand and turned it into a beautiful Victorian-style home for him to feel safe and inspired to write. The two then get a visit from a random man who happens to be a big fan of the husband’s work, and the husband invites him to stay the night, despite the wife’s objections. This man is supposed to represent Adam in the biblical story of Adam and Eve which we know because there is a scene where the man exposes a wound that is seemingly a missing rib which causes his wife to show up a few scenes later. This is a direct reference to the Bible when God takes one of Adam’s ribs to create Eve for him. The representation of Eve is very mischievous, scandalous and invasive who cannot resist the temptation to touch a special crystal in the husband’s forbidden study room which represents the forbidden fruit Eve inevitably eats.
A few scenes later the strangers’ sons show up fighting over favoritism, and one brother ends up murdering the other in cold blood right in the house. This is another direct reference to the story of Cain and Abel. The husband allows the couple to have the funeral at the house, again despite the wife’s objections. As the film goes on, the wife finds out she is pregnant, and the husband is so thrilled it inspires him to start writing again. The husband’s work starts gaining a great deal of popularity and causes fans to barge their way into their home. The husband is enthralled with the adoration, while the wife is overwhelmed and misses attention from her husband. The gathering quickly turns into a frenzy, and the wife goes into labor. She gives birth in the study the husband has boarded up so she can have some peace.
After the wife gives birth to a son, she refuses to let the husband hold him out of fear he is going to pass him off to the fans. While she is asleep the husband does exactly that and the wife is awoken to people tossing her deceased baby around and even consuming parts of him. This scene is extremely triggering for the audience, but it is supposed to represent when Jesus is killed in the Bible, and he talks about consuming his “body and blood” the night before he is crucified. This causes the wife to go ballistic and demand everyone leave her house while shouting “MURDERERS” at them. They turn on her and start beating her in a riot causing her to run down to the oil tank in the basement while the husband follows trying to calm her down. He pleads for her to forgive them, and she goes on to tell the husband that she gave him everything and he appreciated nothing. She then busts the oil tank and sets the basement including herself on fire. The film ends with the husband taking one last request which is her love and grabs a crystal from her chest causing her to turn to dust. The final scene is the house resetting to its original state and another woman wakes up in the same spot Lawrence did in the first scene.
The last half hour of the film cannot be described better than Lawrence’s own quote describing it as “the rape and torment of Mother Earth.” When we think about God and Creation in terms of the Bible, we never think about the repercussions those creations have or if there could be a divine feminine force beneath those creations. The film takes the Bible and puts it into Mother Nature’s perspective which is far more heartbreaking.
Haley Master is a second-year English major with minors in Law, Politics, & Society and Civic & Professional Leadership. HM948534@wcupa.edu