When watching the film for the first time, the characters that first begin to make clear the religious allegory behind mother! are the characters know as simply Man and Woman, played by Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. Man shows up at the door of mother and Him accidentally and He is extremely willing to welcome him into the house and insists he stay the night. Mother is much more skeptical about his sudden appearance and is nervous about the idea of welcoming a complete stranger into their home. Perhaps one of the first major indicators behind what Man represents is when, later that night, mother stumbles upon Him helping a very ill Man in the bathroom where we can see a bruise along the back of one of his ribs.
The mark along Man's ribs
For me, this was a big “ah-HA!” moment. My theory was solidified when the next day, Woman arrives at the door claiming she was invited by Man and he confirms that she is his wife. It's also revealed that Man is, in fact, dying of lung disease. It suddenly became rather clear that Man and Woman represented the original man and woman, Adam and Eve. Man and Woman’s presence in the house causes mother’s life to go into disarray. This is clearly representative of the way humans have caused continuous damage and problems for Mother Earth since we arrived here. Man and Woman become fascinated with the crystal in His office, clearly a representation of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, and no sooner does mother tell them not to go into the office, do Man and Woman sneak in and drop it on the floor, leaving it shattered. (See Eden)
The Crystal in His office
Both Man and Woman are both rather hostile towards mother, to the point where Woman can even be said to be psychologically torturing her with her mischievous and tormenting ways. Through this, we see two opposing forces of feminity between the nuturing, loving woman in the character of mother, who longs for a child, and a woman who is blunt, rude, and complains about her children's effect on her social life. (LaCouter, 2017) She refuses to listen and taunts mother about the relationship between her and Him. She even goes as far as having loud sex with Man in the guest room when she knows that mother and Him have been having intimacy issues. It could also be said that she represents the Serpent within the Garden of Eden since she is a tormentor and extremely cunning. Both Man and Woman, however, always seem to be very appreciative and kind towards Him. I think this is representative of how so many people throughout history and even still are so faithful and loving towards God and religion, but they constantly mistreat and disrespect God’s greatest creation, Earth.
Woman playing with mother's emotions​
After the death of their youngest son (see Oldest Son & Youngest Brother), Man and Woman return to the house on the invitation of Him, for a wake or memorial for their son. Mother, once again, is completely blindsided by this and chaos ensues. The wake continues to grow in numbers and people are constantly ignoring and disrespecting mother’s requests. A man tries to seduce her and a couple tries to have sex in her bed and later try to paint her house for her. They say they’re doing her a favour but she doesn’t take well to them intruding on her creativity. One couple sit on the countertop that is under renovations, but despite mother's several pleas with them to get down off the counter, they continue to get back up, and eventually cause it to break and water shoots through the walls from the now broken pipes. This can be related to the flood narrative within the Bible, which Aronofsky focused on in his film Noah (Lee, 2016). Mother loses it and yells at them all to get out of her house. They flee and Woman and Man follow suit. Woman gives mother one final look on her way out and then they are gone. Woman and Man brought chaos into mother’s home and this is symbolic of the way mankind has continuously destroyed the beautiful Earth that God created.
In the second act of the film, Him finally writes a new work of literature based on his experiences with Man and Woman and this leads to the eventual climax of the film, where a truly Apocalyptic event, due to His success from His writing, destroys mother for good. (see Apocalypse)