so you know how there is this trope of a female character seeing a male character as a substitute to her father (daddy issues and all) or a male character seeing his love interest as his mother (freud stuff)?
i was wondering if there is something that short of reverses this dynamic in a weird way – a female character being reminded of her mother by a male character, or preceiving him as a substitute to a motherly figure or something like that.
i know it’s very specific and kind of twisted, but literature is full of specifically twisted tropes, yet i can’t think of any example for something like that. does anything come to mind?
by RMSANSA
2 Comments
This does sound pretty compelling. You may have more luck on genre romance subreddits, they’re very into niche, twisted dynamics. I’d be surprised if it’s not out there.
I wish I could help, this is interesting. Can you even think of any male “mother figures” in fiction, just the basic concept without the more specific twisted romance dynamic? It seems like a fascinating thought experiment that some author should have wanted to examine before. I can’t think of any examples even of the basic concept, but it’s possible that I *have* read male mother figures in books and just didn’t register or remember them as such. I guess the only way to do it (without gender stereotyping like “he’s warm and not stern so he’s more motherly than fatherly”) *would* be having him remind a specific character of her specific mother, or her specific subjective idea of mothers.