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
Philip, Dr. Bormenthal, and Sharikov are at dinner. Bormenthal refuses to let Sharikov eat until he tucks a napkin into his collar and agrees to use a fork. Sharikov reluctantly agrees, then asks for more vodka, but Bormenthal denies him because it’s unhealthy and Sharikov already acts obscenely enough without it. Sharikov serves himself more vodka anyway. When Bormenthal points out that polite custom requires him to serve the other men first, Sharikov obliges with “a faint, sarcastic smile” and makes fun of the men for preserving old Tsarist customs. They ironically toast one another and then down their vodka.
Following his theory that Sharikov can continue to develop into a better and better human being, Bormenthal decides to teach him manners. However, he fails spectacularly. Like a dog who only sits in exchange for treats, Sharikov only acts civilized when it will get him more vodka. He doesn’t really care about the Bolshevik principles of equality and empowerment that rejected old aristocratic prejudices: he just cites these principles as excuses for his own selfish behavior.
Themes
Philip abruptly says, “Long experience.” Bormenthal is confused, so Philip repeats the line, and then adds, “Nothing to be done here—Klim.” He tells Bormenthal that he’s sure that “it” can be done, then comments “Spater.”
Philip and Bormenthal intentionally use cryptic language and speak German to make sure the uneducated Sharikov can’t understand them. (“Spater” means “later.”) They’re debating whether Sharikov can learn to become a better person or is locked into his inferior nature (whether because of his previous life as a dog or his inferior pituitary gland from the criminal Klim Chugunkin).
Themes
The men eat turkey and drink a lot more. This calms Philip down but energizes Bormenthal, who asks Sharikov about their evening plans. Sharikov chooses the circus, like every other day. Philip proposes the theater instead, but Sharikov refuses, saying the theater is foolish “counterrevolution.” Philip laughs at Sharikov and proposes that he try reading. But Sharikov insists that he does read—he recently read Engels’s correspondence with Kautsky, although he disagrees with both writers and thinks it’s better to just divide everything up equally. He considers it unfair that men like Philip live in seven rooms, while men like himself have to eat from the trash.
Sharikov disguises his preference for the circus over the theater as Bolshevik anti-elitism, but he really prefers it because he’s unsophisticated. Similarly, he only reads traditional communist writers because the Communist Party wants him to, and everyone else is doing it. His taste in literature is as unsophisticated as they come—and so is his proposal for dividing up wealth. He doesn’t see the irony that Philip has seven rooms and he had to eat from the trash as a dog under the same Soviet government that promises equality. And he certainly doesn’t know the ironic fact that Kautsky opposed the Bolsheviks. (Engels was already dead.)
Themes
Philip replies that, if they’re going to divide things up, Sharikov owes him 130 rubles, a third of the revenue he lost for sending his patients home yesterday. Sharikov ruined the house during the incident with the cat and the faucet, and he’s harassing the neighbors. Bormenthal points out that he even groped and bit a woman on the stairs. Philip declares that Sharikov is a feeble animal “on the lowest rung of development,” who is pretending to be on the same level as two educated and intelligent men. He believes men like Sharikov ought to just obey others and accept their place in society.
Philip points out how Sharikov’s apparently principled belief in equality contradicts his actual behavior: he’s selfish and doesn’t recognize other people’s rights or dignity. In contrast, Philip openly declares that he believes in a natural hierarchy of different kinds of people (and animals). Of course, he puts cultivated aristocrats like himself at the top, and he puts uneducated brutes like Sharikov at the bottom. In fact, Sharikov did mostly obey Philip and accept his own inferiority when he was a dog. But just like the Revolution convinced the working classes that they deserved equality, Sharikov’s operation has convinced him that he no longer owes anything to Philip.
Themes
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Philip asks who gave Sharikov the Engels book and isn’t surprised when Sharikov admits that it was Shvonder. All three of the men furiously call out for Zina—and then Philip tells her to burn the book. Bormenthal realizes that things are going to end badly between Philip and Sharikov.
Burning an Engels book is the equivalent of heresy to the Bolsheviks. Bulgakov was writing in the same time and place he’s depicting, so it’s easy to see why Heart of a Dog immediately got banned upon publication. By showing Philip burning Engels he’s pointing out the Soviet double standard: the Soviets banned anti-communist literature but couldn’t tolerate anyone banning their literature.
Themes
Zina brings dessert, but Sharikov tells everyone that he won’t have any and smokes a cigarette instead. Philip starts reading the newspaper and asks Bormenthal to take Sharikov to the circus, as long as there aren’t any cats. Bormenthal reports that Solomonsky’s circus has “Yuesems, whatever they are,” and Nikitin’s has elephants. Sharikov agrees to see the elephants, which he considers far more sophisticated than cats.
Sharikov’s ridiculous, uncontrollable hatred for cats is a holdover from his canine roots. But it’s also an obvious double standard, because it contradicts his constant rants about equality. Actually, just like Philip, he still believes in a natural hierarchy that puts some beings above others. He only rejects hierarchies that put him far from the top.
Themes
Bormenthal and Sharikov leave for the circus, and Philip goes into his office and paces around. He hums “toward the sacred banks of the Nile,” smokes a cigar, and thinks for awhile. Then, he takes out the jar where he’s stored the dog Sharik’s pituitary gland and stares at it intently. He lays down on his couch and decides, “By God, I think I will.” He looks forward to Bormenthal and Sharikov’s return.
With Sharikov out of the house, Philip finally gets some peace and quiet to contemplate his situation. As he always does when he's working, he sings the classical songs that represent his sophistication, education, and intelligence. He’s already determined that the pituitary gland contains the essence of an organism’s personality, so when he looks at Sharik’s, he seems to be considering whether he can (or should) bring the dog’s old personality back.
Themes
