The Creation and Destruction of Mother Earth

In my presentation, I will analyze Darren Aronofsky’s film, mother!, as an allegory centered around man’s effect on the Earth’s environment and, inherently, the female experience. mother! is an allegory about the shrivelling Earth and about the Christian creation narrative, but this horror film is intentionally ambiguous. I will argue that because the story is grounded in a female character, the mother, it describes the struggles that female creators of art, literature, or scientific theory have faced for centuries. This idea of the earth and woman being connected is backed by budding ecofeminist theory, and is easily applicable to Aronofsky’s film. Through the centuries, women who have tried to create have been stifled and repressed; the only creation they were allowed was motherhood. Leaning on the history of literary works such as “The Yellow Wallpaper,” mother! is a piece that celebrates the creation of woman, while outlining the destruction of man