Voldemort...born evil?

Over the course of the Harry Potter series thus far, we have seen significant development of the character Voldemort. We learn about Voldemort’s mother, Merope, a witch and muggle father, Tom Riddle. Merope is abandoned by Tom Riddle, once she stopped bewitching him to be in love with her, and then she has no will to live. We see a glimmer of empathy from Harry when he asks, “She wouldn’t even stay alive for her own son?” after he learns about Voldemort’s parents in the pensive with Dumbledore.

It is pretty clear from the beginning that Tom Riddle, (Voldemort) has evil tendancies.He steals from children in the orphanage and uses his magic to torture other kids. Even Dumbledore when he visits Tom Riddle to tell him about Hogwarts, recognizes some unusual and almost frightening tendencies in Riddle.

Learning more about Voldemort’s past makes him less scary in some sense. His hunger and lust for power, and his tendency to work alone and to depend on no one is a weakness. When reading, I can understand Harry’s empathy for him because he has no one. Voldemort is so power hungry that he has even gone to the lengths of dividing his soul into seven parts. This very action speaks volumes about his disregard for the sacredness of the soul and for his complete lack of conscience or fear of evil.

Voldemort did not have a great childhood, similarly to Harry, however the way that Harry deals with adversity, his humility, and ability to empathize with others are his strengths. I would even say that Harry had an even worse childhood than Voldemort, and Voldemort even shows evil tendancies before he knows of his family’s history so can we blame Voldemort’s character on his experiences?

On one hand, Rowling seems to show through character’s like Snape, that people are often the way that they are because of things they have experienced in their past. According to Snape’s memories in the pensive, he did not have such a great childhood either. I think that even Dudley Dursley could have turned out differently had he not had such a smothering, enabling childhood, because he shows some promise when he says goodbye to Harry in the beginning of the Deathly Hallows.

Voldemort’s character compared to Harry’s suggests that there are other factors that go into a person’s character since one turned out so evil, and the other remained good.