Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Heart of a Dog, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Revolution and Regression
Social Class and Hierarchy
Science, Nature, and Morality
Dignity, Loyalty, and Respect
Summary
Analysis
One fateful day, Sharik wakes up with a sense of dread, but goes about his daily routine as usual. In the evening, Philip gets a call, and soon Dr. Bormenthal arrives with a suitcase. He reports that someone died three hours ago, and he and Philip rush to the examination room. Confused, Sharik decides to go eat, but Philip has the staff lock him in the bathroom instead.
Philip and Bormenthal finally get the “suitable death” they’ve been waiting for, in order to get human organs to transplant into Sharik. But, being a dog, Sharik still doesn’t understand what’s going on—and he continues in blissful ignorance.
Themes
Stuck in the bathroom, Sharik angrily plots revenge: he’ll chew up Philip’s boots in the morning. Then, he starts reminiscing about playing in a courtyard with other dogs. But he reminds himself that he’s grown into “a gentleman’s dog” and can never return to his old life of freedom—besides, he decides, freedom is meaningless. Still, he starts to howl and scratch maniacally at the door. Eventually, he gives up, and then Zina opens the door and drags him into the examination room by his collar.
While Philip and Bormenthal focus on their serious, groundbreaking scientific experiments, Sharik naively daydreams and plots revenge. Bulgakov uses this humorous contrast to emphasize the difference between the excellence of the elite and the banality of the masses. Sharik’s new self-image as “a gentleman’s dog” shows that he recognizes and respects this difference.
Themes
In the examination room, a bright white light blinds the confused Sharik. Wearing a cap, gloves, and apron, Philip hums his song, “toward the sacred banks of the Nile.” He orders Zina to remove Sharik’s collar, and then Dr. Bormenthal smothers Sharik with a sweet-smelling cloth. First baffled and furious, and then calm and grateful, Sharik loses consciousness.
This passage nearly repeats the surgery scene from chapter two, and Sharik’s instinctual fear of human medicine mixes with his gratitude for the last procedure (which healed his wounds). He eventually recognizes that he can’t understand or control what’s happening to him. Philip’s song is the conquering pharaoh’s aria from the Verdi opera Aida—it suggests that the surgery represents a great scientific conquest for him.
Themes
Dr. Bormenthal shaves Sharik’s belly and head while Philip Philippovich looks on and explains that sewing on the pituitary gland will be the most important part of the operation. Half-joking, he says he pities the dog. After Dr. Bormenthal finishes shaving the dog, Zina helps him wash his hands and then leaves. Dr. Bormenthal hands Philip a knife, and Philip cuts into Sharik’s belly with gritted teeth. He starts pulling apart Sharik’s organs until he finds the dog’s testicles, which he cuts out and replaces with another pair from a jar. He sews them in place and then closes up Sharik’s abdomen.
Bulgakov was a surgeon, and he brings his medical expertise into the novel by describing Philip’s operation in great detail. This operation is the opposite of the surgeries Philip performs on his human patients: he’s replacing Sharik’s testicles and pituitary gland with human ones. Both of these organs are significant because they regulate hormones, which determine biological growth and development. In Bulgakov’s analogy between biological and social change, these hormones represent the principles by which a society changes or progresses. In other words, Philip is changing the biological formulas through which Sharik will develop, just as the Russian Revolution changed the social and economic principles by which Russian society would develop in the 20th century.
Themes
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Next, Philip hurriedly cuts into Sharik’s scalp and starts drilling into his skull. He cuts the skull away, severs through membranes, and cuts into Sharik’s brain with a murderous glare. Meanwhile, Dr. Bormenthal gives Sharik injections in his heart to keep him alive. When Philip Philippovich finally cuts around to Sharik’s pituitary gland, Dr. Bormenthal hands him a jar with another gland inside. Philip tosses out Sharik’s gland and ties the new one in its place, then puts his brain back and closes his skull and scalp.
Bulgakov’s description emphasizes the violence inherent in Philip’s surgery. Intensely focused and ruthlessly efficient, Philip clearly savors the destructive power of his job. This furthers the analogy between the rejuvenation surgery and the Russian Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks violently ripped out and replaced key organs in Russian society as part of a dangerous experiment to create a new version of humanity.
Themes
Philip yells at Dr. Bormenthal to stitch Sharik’s head back together, then calls for Zina and demands “a cigarette, […] fresh underwear, and a bath.” While he waits, he opens Sharik’s eyes and says that the dog is going to die, one way or another. He halfheartedly tells Dr. Bormenthal that he pities Sharik.
Philip’s firm demands and patronizing comments to Sharik further show that he’s playing God, exercising a grotesque power over life and death. He meddles with nature, but he also knows that nature will take its course: Sharik will die, whether as a result of the operation or from natural causes. Bulgakov asks whether humans should have such power—and if they do, how they should use it and what kind of people should be authorized to do so.
Themes
