History, Community, and Coming of Age Theme Analysis

As the midway point of the Harry Potter series, Goblet of Fire sees Harry on the cusp of coming of age: while he's described as a boy in the early chapters of the novel, by the end of his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry finally transitions from a boy to a man. While much of this shift has to do with how Harry and his friends mature personally, even more of it has to do with learning about the wider Wizarding world. Harry and his friends attend the Quidditch World Cup, participate in the Triwizard Tournament (a competition between three European schools of magic), and Harry himself finally sees the Dark Lord Voldemort return to his body--all things that establish Harry as a young adult in the Wizarding world. Taken together, all of this suggests that a natural and essential part of coming of age is discovering one's wider community; exploring that community's history and the ways in which history influences the present; and finally, beginning to think about how one fits into that community.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione's experiences at the Quidditch World Cup illustrate just how young and sheltered all three are in terms of knowing about their world--even though Ron was raised in it. The World Cup exposes the protagonists to a global community of wizards, as well as the wider history of the Wizarding world, which shows the trio what exactly they'll become a part of as they mature and come of age. For Hermione, meeting the house-elf Winky at the World Cup introduces her to some of the less savory parts of the Wizarding world, while Harry is shocked to see that the Wizarding world actually includes the whole world, not just Hogwarts and the UK. He first marvels that it never occurred to him that this would be the case, and after he makes the revelation, he thinks it should've been obvious that there are wizards worldwide.

Ron, on the other hand, introduces the idea that part of growing up and becoming part of the Wizarding world means learning about and grappling with Wizarding history, especially in terms of Voldemort's relatively recent history. When Mr. Weasley herds the trio back to the tent after Voldemort's Dark Mark is sent up into the sky, Ron expresses confusion and says, "it's still only a shape in the sky." As Mr. Weasley goes on to explain, the Dark Mark isn't just "a shape in the sky"--for wizards who remember Voldemort's time of power, it signals death and terror. This is something that, as the novel progresses, Harry and other young people must learn. In doing so, they begin to develop empathy for older generations as well as understand that their world is complex and dangerous--it doesn't end at the Hogwarts boundary, and there is evil in the world that not even Dumbledore can protect them from.

Harry continues to learn about the wider Wizarding world thanks to the Triwizard Tournament, a competition between three European schools--Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons--that hasn't taken place for years but is resurrected during Harry's fourth year. The tournament directly exposes Harry to students from all over Europe (it's implied that Beauxbatons is a French school, while Durmstrang is located somewhere in Eastern Europe), once again reminding him that the Wizarding world is a global community comprised of people from all walks of life. Dumbledore tells the students outright that the purpose of the competition is to foster international relations and friendship, something he believes is important all the time but is especially important in light of the growing evidence that Voldemort will soon return to power. Indeed, after the Tournament's culmination in which Cedric Diggory, a Hogwarts Champion, is killed by a newly resurrected Voldemort, Dumbledore tells the students that the only effective way to fight Voldemort is by trusting each other and keeping their relationships alive. Voldemort's power stems from his ability to make the Wizarding world feel small, untrustworthy, and isolated, rather than large, supportive, and connected. This suggests that what Harry learns about his larger community over the course of his fourth year directly prepares him to go on to fight Voldemort in the future, and therefore is essential for his coming of age.

In addition to learning about the Wizarding world as a whole, Harry and his classmates also begin to think about what adult life as a wizard in the UK might look like for them. Their examples of what is possible include recent Hogwarts graduate Percy Weasley, who gets his first job as a clerk at the Ministry of Magic over the summer, as well as the two oldest Weasley brothers, Bill (who works for Gringotts Bank) and Charlie (who works with dragons). Professor Moody, noting Harry and Hermione's developing critical thinking skills, suggests that they think about careers as Aurors (Dark Wizard catchers). Fred and George, meanwhile, spend the year developing joke wands and candies with the hope of starting a business selling their goods, and Harry even gives them his Triwizard Tournament winnings to fund the endeavor.

All of these things begin to offer Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the Weasley twins a way to enter into the world, while also reinforcing, especially for young people like Harry and Hermione who didn't grow up in the Wizarding world, that there is a multitude of different ways forward--and not all of them involve the Ministry. When Harry generously gives the Weasley twins his Triwizard winnings, he tells them that their joke shop will be especially needed to provide everyone some comic relief, given Voldemort's return. Harry's comment suggests that he now understands his community's history enough to conceptualize how he and others might become contributing members in their society--especially in one that appears as though it's going to look much like the recent past.