Heart of a Dog

The Heart of a Dog opens with the internal monologue of a stray dog living in Moscow. The dog is in pain because a cook from the canteen at the National Economic Council poured boiling water on him while he was scavenging in the trash. It is winter, and the dog is convinced he will die from his injuries. He wishes it were summer so he could go to the park to find food and roll in the grass “that does you good” (4), even though, annoyingly, there is often an “old groaner” singing “O celeste Aïda” in the park. The dog reflects that not all cooks are bad; he thinks fondly of Tolstoy’s cook, who was friendly to dogs. While the dog sits in a doorway feeling sorry for himself, a woman notices him and calls him Sharik before going out into the snowstorm.

The narrative perspective shifts to free indirect discourse, flipping between the dog’s first-person perspective and third-person limited perspective. The dog resents being called Sharik, as it is a name for “a dog with pedigree,” and he is a “filthy, stray mongrel” (7).