Living in an era where success is embraced as a life style, raises concerns that the alternatives to become, to grow and mature have been limited to a single variety – one where only triumph matters. This is a view that is spread through contemporary popular culture, whether it be in social media, video games, tv-series, films or books. One of its origins can be found in Christopher Vogler’s dramaturgical template The Hero’s Journey. A common motif used in The Hero’s Journey is the Quest-motif; a knight on an adventure seeking the holy Grail; or Indiana Jones on search for the Arch. One of the foremost examples of the Quest-motif in English literature is the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but the hero in this tale does not come of age through success, but rather through shame and failure. By comparing the original 1400-century alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with the 2021 film adaption The Green Knight, and relating them to the Hero’s Journey, the aim of this essay is to show that the ways to become are altered in the adaptation and to argue that the film is moulded to fit with the Hero’s Journey. This essay proposes that contemporary story telling lacks alternative ways to become, since modern narrative structures are focused on Coming of Age through success in accordance with the Hero’s Journey. If storytellers can create a greater awareness of the discourse of success and how they themselves are subjects of malleability of this discourse, maybe the contemporary audiences will experience narratives that provide a variety of ways to become, creating a world shaped by diversity and inclusion.

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This dissertation investigates how W. A. Mozart applies the concept of key characteristics—the affective properties of each tonality—as discussed by three of his contemporaries, Johann Mattheson, C.F.D. Schubart and G.J. Vogler, to four soubrette and four prima donna characters from four of his late Italian operas: La Contessa and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro; Donna Anna and Zerlina in Don Giovanni; Fiordiligi and Despina in Così fan tutte; Vitellia and Servilia in La clemenza di Tito. The analytical method of this dissertation provides a hermeneutical tool to search for meanings in Mozart's music. The application compares the libretto text and its corresponding tonal center with the description of key characteristics on a micro level, to reveal significant dramatic and practical implications from Mozart's key usage in his operas.

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