Its narrative concentrates around the experiences of Leon Płoszowski, a man from a wealthy aristocratic family, who struggles to find the meaning of life in world without morality by trying to self-analyze his feelings towards the encountered women.

As English publisher of Without Dogma wrote in the preface in 1893 edition: What Wagner did for Germany in music, what Dumas did for France, and Scott for all English-speaking people, the great Pole has achieved for his own country in literature.As his works were considered an embodiment of national virtues, Sienkiewicz surprised the public by his choice to portrait a contemporary society from a profligate's perspective.

As patriotic, but muted and focused on every-day reality, values and slogans preached by Sienkiewicz's generation (such as gradual work for the improvement of socio-economic status of peasants) seemed for the young as too earthbound, many claimed that a pursuit for a personal happiness is what interest them more than public affairs.

Encouraged by his friend who “asserted that anybody who keeps a diary works for the common good, and does a meritorious thing.”, Leon Płoszowski, a thirty-five-year-old man from a wealthy family, begins to describe his everyday experiences and problems.

"Without dogma" didn't live to many readers expectations, as instead of giving them a mythicized picture of Poland's past they wanted to read about, it focused on contemporary society and offered little action burdened with extended psychological analysis of the main hero's character.

He argues that the main issue in “Without dogma” is an ability of an esthetic object (defined usually as a piece of art, but on some occasions also as a woman or nature) to smooth away the evanescence of human being.

As can be seen in his private letters and notes on literature, Sienkiewicz was an independent artist with a lot of self-esteem who sought to create in his works a substitution of a real world that could be meaningful and purposeful.