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
This chapter consists of Dr. Bormenthal’s journal. First, he describes Sharik, the shaggy stray dog. Then, on December 23rd, he describes the surgery that Professor Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky performed to replace Sharik’s testicles and pituitary gland with a recently-deceased human man’s. The patient is expected to die, but gradually improves over the next week, until he sheds his fur and barks—or moans—on December 29th. The next day, it becomes clear that the patient is gaining significant weight, and the day after, he has a “colossal appetite” and barks the word “tsurt.” The next day, Professor Preobrazhensky determines that he’s saying “tsurt-hsif,” which means “fish-trust,” backwards.
The narration abruptly shifts, and Sharik’s perspective won’t return until the very end of the book. Bormenthal’s journal serves as a transitional section between the two distinct halves of the book, which correspond to the two distinct versions of its central character: Sharik the dog and Sharikov the man. Fittingly, this transitional section covers the transition between these two versions of Sharik(ov). Bormenthal also gives the reader important scientific and social context that was only implicit in the first half of the book (like details about Philip Preobrazhensky’s medical background and the operation). After the operation, Sharik gradually starts turning into a man. “Fish-Trust” is one of the signs he learned to read, so when he barks out those words, it shows that he’s learning to articulate his canine intelligence in a human form.
Themes
On January 2nd, Sharik stands up on his hind legs like a human. Professor Preobrazhensky faints and hits his head on a chair. On January 6th, the patient’s tail falls off, and he says, “saloon.” Bormenthal is “totally bewildered,” and the professor has stopped seeing patients. The next day, the “creature” walks around and starts saying more words. Now, he looks mostly human, and his head is growing. Rumors about Professor Preobrazhensky’s experiments are spreading, and people are crowding outside his window. One newspaper reports that he may be hiding a Martian, and another publishes a photo of a violin-playing infant that Darya Petrovna stole from the professor. Shvonder has assembled the house committee.
Philip and Bormenthal’s surprise shows that they didn’t expect their experiment to humanize Sharikov—on the contrary, Philip expected him to die. Although they looked like powerful, godlike manipulators of nature in the last chapter, here it becomes clear that their science has very real limits. They haven’t mastered nature yet; they’re still figuring it out. Meanwhile, Sharik is also pushing the limit between animal and human—his transformation calls into question what biological, intellectual, and/or moral characteristics a being must have to count as fully human. Finally, the public outcry over the experiments helps explain why Philip hates the masses: they’re nosy and want to exercise power over him and his science, even though they don’t understand it.
Themes
On January 8th, Dr. Bormenthal writes that Professor Preobrazhensky has determined the problem: rather than rejuvenating the patient, he has achieved “complete humanization.” Sharik is walking around on his hind legs like a man, laughing and swearing at random, which infuriates Philip. Dr. Bormenthal is surprised to see Philip off-balance, even as he hums his usual song.
Where the experiment sought to rejuvenate Sharik—or turn him into a better version of himself—it actually ended up turning him into someone else. As he becomes human, Sharik starts with what might be considered the lowest, most vulgar human tendencies—he can laugh and swear, but not yet clearly communicate his ideas or respect others. In other words, instead of becoming a superior form of dog, he’s become an inferior form of human. In Bulgakov’s allegory, this also represents the way the Russian Revolution brought out humanity’s worst instincts while claiming to empower their best.
Themes
On January 9th, Dr. Bormenthal notes that Sharik is learning vocabulary fast, as though he is remembering words he always secretly knew. On January 10th, Dr. Bormenthal writes that the servants dressed Sharik, who yelled vulgar jokes at them when they tried to put on his underwear. He notes that Sharik’s dog’s paw is gradually turning into a human foot, and Sharik’s toilet training is gradually improving.
If Sharik already knew some of the words he’s fast learning, then this suggests that dogs are far more intelligent than people tend to give them credit for. At the same time, he doesn’t seem to be getting any more intelligent as he turns into a human. In Bulgakov’s allegory, this represents the way the Russian Revolution convinced the masses that they deserved to rule, without actually making them capable of ruling.
Themes
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On January 11th, Sharik agrees to get fully dressed and then makes a tongue-in-cheek joke asking for a cigarette. He’s shed all his fur, except the hair on his head, which increasingly resembles a human’s. And most importantly, he is finally communicating directly with people: when Philip tells him not to throw around his food, Sharik tells Philip to leave him alone. Philip warns Sharik against insulting him, and Sharik clearly understands the threat.
Sharik is able to talk, but he only seems to understand threats and insults—forms of communication that are based on power, not respect. In fact, he’s certainly less respectful and obedient than he was as a dog, when he was grateful to Philip for saving him from starvation. Bulgakov is making another point about the masses during the Russian Revolution: they used to accept their role at the bottom of the social hierarchy, but the Revolution gave them the erroneous idea that they knew how to govern just as well as the elite.
Themes
On January 12th, Dr. Bormenthal comments that Professor Preobrazhensky appears to have made a major medical breakthrough: hypophysis (pituitary) hormones determine whether people take on human form. The human gland seems to have taught Sharik to speak and tapped into his brain’s hidden powers. This shows that all animals truly are related through evolution. It also suggests that dogs can think conceptually and even read. After all, Sharik read “Fish Trust.”
While Philip’s conclusion is pure science fiction, his findings show that he was conversant with the great scientific debates of his day. He suggests that people have a fixed, unchanging essence, which miraculously resides in the pituitary gland. Of course, Bulgakov is really parodying this idea. Specifically, he’s criticizing scientists’ search for a silver-bullet solution to the question of human biology, one that lets them explain all the complexities of human identity in terms of one simple trait or organ. The alternative is to recognize that people are complex, change over time, and can’t be defined or understood in any singular way.
Themes
Philip’s experiments are still raising a scandal. People are claiming that the end of the world is near, and Dr. Bormenthal is hiding out in Philip’s apartment with Sharik. He worries that he’ll have to flee Moscow. Meanwhile, when Dr. Bormenthal suggests that Sharik can develop into a highly intelligent being, Philip replies with suspicion. He is constantly looking at the human pituitary gland donor’s case history, which Dr. Bormenthal copies into his notes. The donor, a 25-year-old balalaika player and petty thief named Klim Grigorievich Chugunkin, was stabbed to death in a bar fight after being released from a work camp on probation. Dr. Bormenthal doesn’t understand Philip’s obsession with the man.
Because science gives doctors like Philip a godlike power over life and death, the public views science through the lens of religion. People regard Philip’s experiments as apocalyptic because they simply do not understand them. Bormenthal and Philip’s disagreement reflects their opposing theories about human identity. Bormenthal thinks that people are capable of constant improvement and change—so Sharik will continue to improve as he becomes further humanized. But Philip thinks that people’s character and ability are fixed, so Sharik will become nothing more and nothing less than the man whose organs he received. These opposing theories also bear on the novel’s criticism of the Russian Revolution: the revolutionaries believed that the working classes deserve equality because they have just as much potential as the wealthy; elites like Bulgakov did not. Of course, Sharik’s organ donor is a caricature of working-class vulgarity and immorality, so his development as a human will also reflect Bulgakov’s beliefs about whether the working classes can rise to the level of the aristocracy.
Themes
On January 17th, Dr. Bormenthal writes that he’s had the flu during the last few days. Over this period, Sharik has essentially finished his transformation into a human. He looks, talks, smokes, eats, and get dressed like any other man. Bormenthal concludes that Sharik is a totally novel kind of organism.
Sharik’s humanization proves Philip’s theory about the pituitary gland. On the one hand, his new human form suggests that it really is possible for people to transform—and, by analogy, for the working classes to become competent rulers of a communist society. On the other hand, if this human form is totally determined by biology—the pituitary gland—then there’s a strict natural limit to how much people can change.
Themes
