THE HOLOCAUST IN BERNHARD SCHLINK’S THE READER IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF NEW HISTORICISM CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background Literature and society likes book and pen which is related each other. Book has function as a media to a pen to paint every incision of its ink. Then pen has function to be a tool to fill the plain of every sheet of the paper within the book. Thus, pen and book is completed one another. Literature and society are the same. Society is the source of the creation of literary work, while literary work itself wrote based on the incision by incision of the story that happens on the society. Thus, between literature and society is linked each other. Literature that is made by the author can be the image of the author’s worldview toward society. Thus, society also has an important role to evolve the author’s imagination and then they pour their imagination to the literary work. Through this process, literary work which is written by the author directly linked with the social condition of certain time and place that is told in the literary work, furthermore; it can be said that literary work can reveal the historical event of the society during the period of the setting inside the literary work itself. The historical event that popular to be made into literary work is holocaust. Holocaust is important to learn since it has become a global point of reference in Universal history. By learning the holocaust, the society can engage their critical reflection