Socio-historial critique of the literary text based, on the theory of Claude Duchet (Case study: novel The Great Swindle written by Pierre Lemaitre)

In the field of the sociology of literature, many and varied views have been expressed, among which Claude Duchet’s approach has the greatest focus on the text. This method of literary criticism explores and reveals social realities through reading the literary text. The sociocritical is more inclined to social analysis of behaviors and seeks to find social signs and phenomena in the heart of the literary text. Considering that contemporary French literature has been greatly influenced by social developments, a great number of writers have always tried to write works inspired by social realities. Pierre Lemaitre is one of them who, in his famous work, entitled The Great Swindle, writes a story influenced by the First World War and refers to the consequences of the social life of this important historical event in French society. In this article, an attempt has been made to analyze Pierre Lemaitre’s work using the sociocritical of the prominent contemporary literary critic, Claude Duchet, the social infrastructure of the novel The Great Swindle. To do this, we studied and analyzed the text according to Duchet’s analytical concepts such as text society, reference society and sociogram. After explaining each concept, we showed it in the novel.