Of the many themes that the Harry Potter series encompasses, one of the most prevalent and interesting is “bildungsroman,” or, the “coming of age” story of Harry himself. Harry has overcome many obstacles and events in his lifetime that shape how he ultimately is, and how he develops throughout his life. Through tragedy, Harry becomes an adult and matures rather quickly for someone of his age.
From the very beginning, there is the major traumatic event of the death of his parents. While some may seem this as a burden, or a crippling event, Harry embraces this and uses it as motivation to fight against not only Voldemort, but also evil in general. We see him transform from a somewhat timid and abused child in the beginning of the series, to a confident young man towards the end. All of the experiences that he has had has shaped him and made him grow stronger. Although the death of Cedric affects Harry in a very large way (mostly negatively) I think it makes him appreciate and grasp the seriousness of the situation that he has been put in. Instead of giving up, Harry overcomes the odds and rises to the occasion of stopping the return of Lord Voldemort. He uses the anger and hurt experienced during his lifetime as motivation for doing good in the wizarding world and putting an end to evil. Finally, the fact that he can be angry with his friends and superiors is a sign of confidence in his position, which is something that he didn’t possess in the earlier books.
Overall, Harry has been greatly affected by the traumatic events in his life but he has used these events as motivation for defeating evil, rather than let the events defeat him.
Everything that you mentioned is very well thought out. However, I think that you could also mention when harry is finally informed that he is that target of Voldemort. Before he is clearly informed about this everything just kind of happens, he is provided help along the way and comfort but not really told why he is faced with the struggle of facing these deadly challenges. It is also interesting that he is allowed in the Twizard tournament due to the fact that he was below the age requirement but they still allowed him to take part in this. Clearly iuf they saw it as a greater danger to him due to his lack of experience they most likely would have found a way around it so that he did not compete. Harry has been tested throughout the book and it only continues.
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