New Historicism in Missing Solouch and The Grapes of Wrath

Literary works in a general manner and novel somehow in a particular way are created through the social, political and cultural context with its specific characteristics. A new historicist approach based on the ideas of Stephen Greenblatt and Michel Foucault transcends the traditionalist historian approach that only cares about the text or the new critique approach which surveys the creation of the work only according to the historical and social conditions. In this paper, based on the Greenblatt and Foucault’s new historian approach these topics are evaluated and analyzed: 1) the historical and social conditions and biographies of the two writers and the similarities between them, 2) representation of those terms in both works by the authors, 3) their interaction with other works, 4) style, discourse and power in both works, and 5) identity change. The first three components are the outer elements of the text and the last two, the inner ones.