Tolkien plays on all 5 senses to create a clear, lingering image and his descriptions could apply to the trenches of the Somme as much as they do the dark corners of Middle-earth. Potentially the most telling manner in which Tolkien's personal experiences arise in The Lord of the Rings is through the harrowing imagery the author uses during battle scenes, or while Frodo is on the final leg of his journey to Mt. The Dead Marshes and Mines or Moria, for instance, are depicted very much like recorded descriptions of WWI trenches - almost impossible to traverse and haunted by lingering faces in the gloom - and Tolkien's first stories of dragons came shortly after the introduction of tanks to the war, adding to Lord of the Rings' critical undercurrent aimed at industrialization.
Tolkien himself insisted the the wars of the real world did not directly correlate to events or specific plot points in The Lord of the Ringsand famously rejected allegory in his works, but the thematic comparisons are clear, and certain other connections have been drawn over the decades. Perhaps more significantly, Frodo's inability to return to everyday life after his experience in Mordor is said to be a reflection of how veterans would struggle to assimilate back into civilization once the war had ended. The industrial machinations Saruman and Sauron use to manufacture and equip their armies are comparable to the lethal technological advances made throughout World War I, while Simon likens the bond between the 4 main Hobbits as a representation of the camaraderie between soldiers forced to spend days and nights in close proximity. The author's grandson, Simon Tolkien (via BBC), notes several connections between the real-life horrors of the Great War and the struggle of elves and men against a great, unseen evil. Tolkien's experiences as a soldier during the First World War understandably shaped his literary magnum opus, and it's no coincidence that The Lord of the Rings centers around a "war to end all wars." However, the influence of Tolkien's time in the trenches runs far deeper than the basic premise. Martin and Terry Brooks, and a major part of this enduring popularity is the vivid way in which Tolkien paints the setting of The Lord of the Rings. With extended sections of description, meticulous appendices and numerous tables, maps and charts, Middle-earth is fleshed out into a land that many fans have become more familiar with than their own country. Moreover, Tolkien has had a virtually immeasurable influence on other best-selling fantasy writers such as Terry Pratchett, George R. Tolkien offers such a rich and detailed picture of Middle-earth through his prose that his world lives on almost a century after its inception, arguably more popular than ever before. Beginning with the release of The Hobbit in 1937, the history and composition of Middle-earth was then developed exponentially in The Lord of the Rings, the posthumous The Silmarillion and various other writings by Tolkien that have been made public since the author's death. The world of The Lord of the Rings may feel as detached from reality as fiction can possibly get, but so much of Tolkien's Middle-earth is inspired by or based on real-world cultures, locations and experiences.
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