Dignity, Loyalty, and Respect Theme Analysis

In Heart of a Dog, the Soviet government attacks more than just Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky’s oversized apartment and wealthy elite class: it also tries to eradicate the basic human values that make a life like Philip’s worth living. While solitary and occasionally standoffish, Philip still believes in treating everyone—even the intolerable, mischievous Sharikov—with dignity, decency, and respect. He’s also staunchly committed to nonviolence. The relationships that hold his life together are based on these values, which he shares with his assistant Bormenthal and his house staff, Zina, Fyodor, and Darya Petrovna. In fact, he thinks that loyalty and friendship are what separate people like him from people like Sharikov, Shvonder, and most of the Russian proletariat, who view others as interchangeable parts in a system of social classes, rather than as individuals. For Bulgakov, Soviet communists lose these basic values—and the sense of human connection they create—because they form relationships around abstract political ideas about economic and social equality, instead of around mutual interest, consent, and good will. To have truly meaningful relationships, Bulgakov suggests, humans actually have to be biased and individualistic to a certain degree—in other words, rather than trying to treat everyone else equally, they have to dedicate their care, attention, and loyalty to some people over others.

The novel sharply distinguishes between two different models of human relationships: those based on consent and those based on coercion. Philip and Bormenthal’s partnership exemplifies the first. They work, live, and socialize together because they want to. They deeply appreciate and respect one another, and it’s clear that they both gain from the relationship. For instance, shortly before they start to plot Sharikov’s demise, Bormenthal sincerely thanks Philip for his mentorship and even gives him a  platonic kiss on the moustache. Philip’s relationships with the house staff and many of his patients are similarly respectful and loyal, although not as close. So is his relationship with Sharik (at least as first). After he lures Sharik back to his apartment with sausage, Bormenthal is surprised to see him successfully catch a stray dog. Philip responds that “kindness [is] the only method possible in dealing with living creatures”—terror will not work because it “completely paralyzes the nervous system.” In other words, Philip understands that people respond better to positive incentives than negative ones. In short, he shows how genuine relationships can enrich people’s lives by giving them a sense of safety, meaning, and community.

In contrast, Sharikov, Shvonder, and other representatives of the new revolutionary government have coercive relationships. Instead of entering human interactions with respect and decency, they treat everything as a power struggle. For example, when Shvonder and his building management committee first visit Philip at the end of the second chapter, they offer demands, threats, and a thinly-veiled call for donations. Where Philip approached Sharik with kindness, the management committee approaches Philip trying—unsuccessfully—to terrorize him into giving up part of his apartment or donating money. Something similar happens after Philip’s experiment turns Sharik into a man. Instead of loyally obeying his master, Sharik (now named Sharikov) starts to insult and make demands on him. He no longer recognizes or appreciates Philip’s generosity towards him, even though Philip saved his life by adopting him. When Philip asks Sharikov to quiet down and clean up, Sharikov refuses. They aren’t linked together by goodwill or mutual consent, but instead by obligation—they’re now roommates, whether they like it or not. (They don’t.) Where Philip and Bormenthal’s relationship is win-win, Philip and Sharikov’s is zero-sum: it adds nothing but conflict and tension to their lives, but they can’t avoid it because they’re forced to interact.

Bulgakov suggests that the repressive Soviet communist government tilts the balance away from consensual relationships and towards coercive relationships by intervening in people’s private lives. Trust disappears; more connections revolve around power, and fewer involve genuine care, kindness, and affection. Philip illustrates this general loss of trust when he points out how people’s shoes started getting stolen in his building around the time of the Russian Revolution, and then everyone suddenly started keeping their shoes in their apartments rather than in the shared rack. This shows how people withdrew from public and social life after the Russian Revolution. The novel suggests various possible causes: they feared government persecution, they started viewing their former peers as rivals, they started refusing to put another person’s needs before their own, or they started insisting on equality in every interaction. Vyazemskaya, a member of the management committee, particularly illustrates this distorted thinking when she asks Philip for a donation for German children—but instead of telling him why he should donate, she tells him why it would be wrong not to. She’s appealing to his sense of abstract obligation to the needy and fear of the government, not his sense of concern or goodwill, which would require him to feel partial towards the beneficiaries of his donation. In order to promote equality, the Soviet Union seems to think, people have to feel the same way towards everyone. Any loyalty, commitment, or affection is suspect. For instance, Philip points out that even Sharikov will probably turn against Shvonder as soon as it’s convenient for him—and he does. This shows that, even though they’re working together to kick Philip out of his apartment, Shvonder and Sharikov don’t share any genuine connection—at best, they’re temporary allies, not friends.

In contrast to the Soviets, Bulgakov sees that the most valuable relationships are precisely the loyal, biased, unique, trustworthy, and respectful ones. Philip and Bormenthal’s relationship is something of an outlier—a relic, even—but it’s also a sign of hope. It proves that the authoritarian government does not have to infiltrate every part of people’s lives and turn every relationship into a source of suspicion and distrust.