In literature, the mother-son relationship has been a central theme in works such as James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," where the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, struggles with his mother's expectations and his own desire for independence. Similarly, in Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar," the protagonist Esther Greenwood's relationship with her mother is fraught with tension, as she grapples with her mother's pressures and her own mental health.