Heart of a Dog

The Heart of a Dog traces the transformation of the stray dog Sharik into a human named Sharikov and his maturation as a human before ultimately returning to his original state. Sharik’s first-person point of view bookends the beginning and the end of the novel, giving insights into his thoughts and feelings when in dog form. Within Bulgakov’s satire, Sharik represents the Russian populace in general as it is transformed over the course of the Russian Revolution and the early days of the Soviet Republic.

At the beginning of the novella, Sharik is a miserable, injured stray dog living on the streets in Moscow. He is crying out in pain after being burned with boiling water by a cook who wanted to stop him from scavenging in the trash for food scraps. He believes he is “finished” and that he will die from his injuries. Initially, Sharik is characterized by his resentment of the proletariat and his anger over his mistreatment at their hands. He thinks, for example, that “garbage men are the lowest form of proletarian life” (5). He contrasts the brutish working class with the kindness of “a gentleman’s cook who worked for Count [Leo] Tolstoy’s family and not for your stinking Food Rationing Board” (5).