Thank you all for your good thoughts!
It's very interesting how there are ways that different voyages that took place in Middle Earth can be compared to the voyages across the Atlantic during our Age of Exploration.
As I first pointed out, the Elves leaving Middle Earth for Valinor could be compared to the Pilgrims. Mainly, it was because they were giving up on the rapidly diminishing hope that things would get better. Their old lives were useless, meaningless, and so they left in search of a better place. I might also add that both groups were escaping persecution. The Elves were fleeing Sauron's second onslaught, whereas the Pilgrims wanted more freedom of religion.
Then there's the comparison of the Men of the West attempting to reach Valinor. This was placed beside the initial reason that Europeans explored west. They wanted to find wealth and conquer new lands. There voyage was not out of necessity, but out of greed. That's about where that comparison stops, because the Numenoreans failed to reach the Undying Lands, while the Europeans did come to the Americas and succeeded in conquering the lands.
And finally,
Luthien brought up the fact that the Noldor leaving Valinor would also be like the nations of Europe setting out in search of wealth and might. Although that was not the Noldori's original intent, this is probably a closer comparison than that with the Numenoreans. The Noldor, like the Conquistadors, did find and conquer a new land. But they did not take the riches they found back to Valinor, they stayed and prospered in Middle Earth.
These three links could just be instances of metareference(if you need to know what that means look
here). But it seems like there would be a lot of coincidences for the journeys of Middle Earth to just happen to be so much like those over the Atlantic. It would make more sense that there was a reason that Tolkien made the different voyages alike. Now, what reason?
