The literary origins are ancient. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BCE) is the foundational text. While famous for the prophecy of patricide and incest, the play’s real horror is epistemological: Oedipus’s tragic arc is the slow, dawning realization that he does not know who he is. The mother, Jocasta, becomes the forbidden truth. She is both the solution to the riddle (she births the king) and the final, unspeakable answer. The play asks a radical question: can a son ever truly know his mother, or is the act of knowing itself a form of transgression?

Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) is the quietest, most devastating film about filial ingratitude. An elderly couple visits their adult children in Tokyo, only to find that the children—especially the son—are too busy for them. The son’s wife (the daughter-in-law) shows more kindness than the biological son. The mother dies soon after returning home. The son’s grief is a delayed, shameful thing. Ozu shows how modernization severs the ancient contract between mother and son, leaving only politeness and regret.

In literature, the works of authors like James Joyce, particularly in his novel "Ulysses", showcase the intricate and intimate relationship between mother and son. The character of Molly Bloom is a quintessential example of a mother's unwavering love and support for her son, Leopold.