Dostoevsky's Impact on Literature and Philosophy

By: M. Gilchrist

Dostoevsky was, and still is, one of the most important writers that not only narrated stories but began to psychoanalyze each of his characters in intricate ways. Throughout his novels he explored the temptation of gambling, murder, and suicide. His intricate and complex perspectives and work led him to be one of the most acclaimed writers amongst philosophers and psychologists alike. 

Fyodor Dostoevsky never had a fortunate life, and his pain and suffering was an essential factor that led him to have great knowledge on psychoanalysis. He criticized Czarist rule  in Russia along with his writing circle, which later led him to be arrested and sentenced to death together with other participants. Him and all who had been sentenced to death with him had accepted their departure in life, until the last second where the Czar announced that they would be forgiven and would serve in the Siberian labor camps for 4 years, where the writer would begin to understand the value of life and existence. He came to the realization that all humans are always at the edge of death.  
 
After the enlightenment, many philosophers along with other intellectuals believed in rationalism and how the belief in God and religion would decay as time went by. Dostoevsky did not agree with this point and stated that any man or woman “deprived of meaningful work, [...] lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.” In this quote “meaningful work” is associated with the following of God and religion and how without it people would drive themselves insane, with no path or drive to continue. 
 
Dostoevsky thought that the pursuit of beauty, love and art was the reason for existence, rather than the vacuous nihilistic ways of the enlightenment. This critic of rationalism gave birth to modernism and writers such as Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre. Fyodor Dostoevsky changed our philosophical viewpoint of life, going against rationalist ways and began existentialism.​