Tolkien's Allegory and Applicability

I noticed you were carefully used the word applicability rather than allegory. Both Lewis and Tolkien had their problems with allegory, especially Tolkien. He talks about how we are all allegories because our life itself is a story which is rooted in God's stories. So there's an aspect of finding Christian truth and Christian meaning which I think is inescapable. And I think Tolkien increasingly recognized that.