The impact of social realism in French and Russian literature on social law in Europe: Dostoyevsky and Hugo. What is the impact of Dostoyevsky's and Hugo's works of social realism on social laws in Europe?

Abstract

Through the Karamavoz Brothers (1880), a clan of morally monstrous characters, the murder of the father appears as a salvation. Salvation or damnation? The imminently immoral murder of Oedipus the King in the ancient tradition becomes moral by deviance and pleasurable under the corrosive writing of Dostoyevsky. The parricide in the village of Skotoprigonievsk, a chilling universe of conservatism with an added layer of sordidness, is suddenly the subject of national interest. All the Russian media take hold of the event; the public opinion rejoices to judge so quickly and easily the apparently perfect odious crime which will allow them to give themselves a moral and a conscience. In this powerful work, Dostoyevsky shows, through the lack of values in Russian society, the impact of the lack of responsibility on the social condition. Written in 1862, the work The Miserables by Hugo denounces with so much vigor the hypocrisy and the lack of values of the French society, that it imposes itself unconsciously as a principle of national responsibility, whose labor laws will change in the following years. What is the impact of Dostoyevsky's and Hugo's works of social realism on the social laws in Europe?