During his time in America, he became critical towards Christianity, attracted to socialism, and influenced by the works of writers such as Walt Whitman, Henrik Ibsen, and Peter Kropotkin.

His time and experiences in America and subsequent year in Europe also profoundly influenced his writing style and his outlook on the world, resulting in feelings of alienation from Japanese society.

Through his brother Arishima Ikuma, he also became acquainted with authors who graduated from the Gakushuin, including Naoya Shiga and Saneatsu Mushanokōji.

Arishima first achieved fame in 1917 with The Descendents of Cain (カインの末裔, Kain no Matsuei), which depicts God’s curse on both man and nature through the eyes of a self-destructive tenant farmer.

In 1922, Arishima implemented the socialist philosophy he had been developing by renunciation of the ownership of a large tenant farm in Hokkaidō, which he had inherited from his father, publicly stating that he wanted to distance himself from the petit bourgeois in the coming revolution.

In 1922, Arishima met Akiko Hatano, a married woman and an editor working for the Fujin Koron, a famous women's magazine.