From Rodion and Ivan to Fyodor: Understanding characterization in Bungo Stray Dogs using Polyphony and Cognitive Dissonance

The timelessness of Dostoevsky’s work was understood as Asagiri presented his new interpretation based on the amalgamation of Ivan and Rodion through his character Fyodor. The aim is to understand the characterization and the underlying guilt of Rodion, Ivan and Fyodor as they mirrored each other. This is achieved through the analysis of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics and Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. Rodion, Ivan and Fyodor suffer from cognitive dissonance which is used to analyse the motivation that drives Fyodor to erase abilities from the Bungo Stray Dogs Universe. The three texts, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov and Bungo Stray Dogs are analysed in the paper. The article brings out the paradoxical nature of the characters and the ways in which they had tried or had been trying to reduce their internal anguish.