Tolkiens childhood.

[Arvedui]

I don't know if any of you have ever thought about this. At least, it is the first time that I have thought about it, but I recently started reading the Silmarillion again, and I raised an eyebrow when I read this in the chapter 'Of Aulë and Yavanna', when Ilúvatar have accepted Aulë's offer concerning the Dwarves. He (Eru) have ordered the Dwarves to sleep and gives his prophecy of strife between Elves and Dwarves:
But when the time comes I will awaken them, and they shall be to thee as children; and often strife shall arise between thine and mine, the children of my adoption and the children of my choice .'

Tolkien was orphaned early in life, and I wondered: could his experiences during childhood have inspired this statement from Ilúvatar?

Strange topic? Well, I had a hard time finding a suitable subject title, so....

And I didn't even manage that :rolleyes:

[Bethelarien]

Being an adopted child myself, I think it is quite possible. Let me explain by telling you something about my situation.

I was adopted into a family that already had five girls (and another girl was adopted after me). That makes me sixth out of seven. I think that it is somewhat normal that the natural children of the parents would feel jealous and perhaps a little...um...at a disadvantage? I don't know. It may seem like the parents favor the adopted children more, while to the adoptees, it seems like the parents favor the natural children more. A lot of tension in the family can spring from this.

So, it's quite possible that Tolkien experienced some of these feelings during his childhood, which in turn inspired those lines in his book. They certainly apply to real life.

Does that help any?

[Chymaera]

Tolkien and his younger brother were orphaned at the ages of 13 and 11.

Their mother had appointed their priest (Father Francis Morgan) as their guardian.

Now the problem was that Tolkien's mother was a recent convert from the Anglican to the Catholic church (this cause great hostility on both sides of the family, as the both hated the Papacy). She wanted to make sure her sons stayed Catholic so she couldn't have sons staying close relatives so they stayed with Beatrice Suffield an aunt related by marrage and she had not care about religon.

With his mother they hade lived in or near pleasent ideallic in rural England then having to move in to the city was shock upon shock to young Tolkien.

He was always an orphan and was never adopted and the only other childern he know were school friends (mostly).

[Ithrynluin]

I guess J.R.R. reflected some of himself into his works - is it even possible for an author to keep a complete distance from his/her work and not pour even a little bit of himself into it? I don't think so. He had that nasty encounter with a spider in South Africa, hence his fear of spiders and the portrayal of Shelob/Ungoliant.

Tolkien was orphaned early in life, and I wondered: could his experiences during childhood have inspired this statement from Ilúvatar?

Well, it looks like he had no step brothers/sisters so he can't have felt any conflict between 'biological' children and adopted ones firsthand.

[Chymaera]

but there was the usual amount of tragety that every child encounters in his journey through life.