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Originally Posted by Bethberry
I don't mean to discount your conclusion, but I do wonder what conditions we assign or ascribe to autobiographical impulses. I mean, I know that there is a profound link between the author and his writing, but I sometimes think we too quickly or easily assume that correlations are causations.
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I think that as something as profound as your upbringing and your relationship with parent/guardian has an influence on your own personality, then it would surely follow that this would also have an effect on any creative endeavours. Tolkien's later experiences in WWI would be discernible in his writing, so why not his upbringing? But you are right that we ought to be careful in what links we make from life to writer. A case in point is Daddy by Plath, which at first glance might make the reader think she despised her father, while the opposite is true; to a certain extent the (controlled) rage of this work is due in fact to love, and to use only a biographical approach risks a mangled interpretation. But I'll leave that there, as there are seemingly as many ways to interpret Plath as there are to interpret Tolkien.
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Originally Posted by Bethberry
Or does it perhaps provide a wider way to explore a variety of issues about character, loyality, motivation?
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Yes, it does give us a lot of opportunites by way of textual analysis too. For example, the fact that a character is without their parents does provide other narrative opportunities. In a way, that character is free to act without the ties of family, both in terms of not being restricted by expectation and not being responsible for a relative. There are a lot of avenues to explore in this direction within the text.
I suppose the most interesting question this raises is whether life experience really does influence a writer and to what extent?