Elwin Ransom
Elwin Ransom may be based on C. S. Lewis' friend J. R. R. Tolkien ("Elwin" means "Elf friend" in Anglo-Saxon), though he seems to have autobiographical elements. In "That Hideous Strength" Ransom, with his royal charisma and matter-of-fact breezy acceptance of the supernatural, appears less like Tolkien than like Charles Williams (or some of the heroes in Williams' books).
Themes of The Lord of the Rings
Since the publications of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit" and "The Silmarillion", a wealth of secondary literature has been published discussing the literary themes and archetypes present in the stories. Tolkien also wrote about the themes of his books in letters to friends, family and fans, and often within the books themselves. In his Foreword to the Second Edition of "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien said that he "disliked allegory in all its forms" (using the word "applicability" instead), and told those claiming the story was a metaphor for World War II to remember that he had lost "all but one" of his close friends in World War I.