Dick Diver and destruction

Dick doesn't survive; I guess that's part of the thesis. You have a psychiatrist who lets down the people he's treating- it becomes a vicious circle of mental incapacity, and yet you can't look at Dick in the same way as you look at the others. Nicole is genuinely sick; she knows she sick, and because of her illness she seems to be in more in tune to Dick's behavior than he does.

His attempts to genuinely help his patients are derailed by his lack of self control; he parties, he's a womanizer, and he's a liar. Unfortunately, he's really bad at all three and becomes twisted in his own web of deceit. By the time Dick gets to Rome he's completely derailed from the tracks. He is the 'black death,' he is as crazy as Nicole.............. and he's as suicidal as she ever was. It's a very sad story, but the survival of the fittest would negate your thesis if your applying it to his character. You have to apply this premise to a character that actually 'survives.'

Whilst the previous answer is largely true, it may also be said that Dick does survive. He may not survive as a success in academic, career or even fiscal terms; but he does survive the vagaries of life. He survives the losses inherent in his world; loss of career, wife, social acceptance, his children. He has survived the illness of his wife, has achieved self knowledge by awareness that he lost his values and became 'owned' by Nicole's money. This does lead him to live a life very much diminished in terms of the esteem of his [adopted] circle and of we, the readers. Perhaps it is the essential Dick, that has survived? What you may find it necessary to do is to define or even re-define 'survival'. It is your essay and you can to some extent, define its perameters.