On the Destruction of Man

How is a man destroyed?  Is it through a grievous defect of character?  Is it through a series of uncontrollable circumstances that place him in an impossible situation?  Is it through a man’s own cultivated perversion?  Are these destroyed men dealt a bad hand from Fate herself?  Or are they twisted sociopaths who get their due? I’ve been thinking about those questions thanks to The Brothers Karamazov.  Looking at Dmitri, especially, I wonder how he could get so carried away about Grushenka and how he could be driven to shed blood, and here is the key part:  I wonder how different Dmitri and I are.  In looking at Dostoyevsky’s characters it seems to me that even the worst protagonists maintain their humanity.  In looking at...