[Mithalwen]

this does raise a lot of issues - and Sohia has raised and interesting point. There is an awful lot of "surrogate" fathering going on throughout the books and it certainly isn't a clearcut case of "natural father good, substitute father bad" .

Despite the workings of Grima and Saruman, Theoden is a good substitute father to Eowyn and Eomer. Elrond, genuinely tries to do his best for Aragorn even though it would serve his interests not to - and don't forget he had Maglor and Maedhros as surrogate fathers for a while, which surely is off the scale for dysfunctionality . Yes Hurin's loss was catastrophic for Turin and Niniel but Denethor was destructive to his own son Faramir - it is his foil, Imrahil, Faramir's maternal uncle who reminds Denethor of the bond - although the belated realisation has its own near fatal consequences. Eol is even more destructive to Maeglin.


Thinking about it, although mothers are so often absent there is a lot less surrogate mothering going on - Frodo, Eomer,Eowyn, Tuor & Aragorn all are received into households with no matriach (ok Aragorn has his mother til adulthood but she seems fairly marginal - he was raised by Elrond..)...and in Frodo's case into household which never had a matriach.

I don't want to get too into the biography since I doubt greatly that that Tolkien wrote any of it consciously as an exploration of fatherhood or parenthood. But it is possible that he was influenced subconsciously by his own experiences as a son and as a parent. The atypical family set up was what he experienced - normal for him. The relationship between Bilbo and Frodo does not necessarily paralel tolkien's relationship with father morgan.

However there are example of sons repeating the experienced pattern of parenthood - Denethor's favouritism of Boromir my be a reflection of his own father's relationship with Aragorn in the guise of Thorongil.

May have to do a bit more research..