Dostoevsky's imprisonment left him disillusioned with insurrectionist ideas, especially the notion that a utopian existence was attainable in this life. To Dostoevsky, the most profound delusion imaginable was the perception that scientific rationalism held the key to human happiness. In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan is a fatalist who seems more concerned with abstracting a meaning from life than in the experience of living. Through Ivan's eloquent conjecturing about his "poem in progress," Dostoevsky demonstrates that constitutional distress with life is a malignancy, poised to destroy all hope for a meaningful future.