Title: The Heart of a Dog
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Date of First Publication: 1925 (not actually published in novel form for decades)
Type: Novel
Characters: No Character
Themes: ANDROID; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTERS; BYRONIC HERO
Critical Summary: On a winter day in Moscow in 1924 a stray dog is scalded with boiling water by a cook. While the dog is lying awaiting his end, he is found by surgeon Filip Filipovich Preobrazhensky. The surgeon’s name is derived from the word “transformation.” Preobrazhensky takes the dog back to his apartment. For many days after the dog is nursed back to health by Filip and his servants, and given the name Sharik. Only after the dog is healthy again does Filip reveal his true intentions, and he begins to prepare his laboratory. Once the laboratory is prepared, the dog is sedated and the operation begins. With the assistance from his servants, Preobrazhensky opens Sharik’s skull and inserts a human pituitary gland; he also opens his torso and gives him human testicles. In the weeks following the surgery, Sharik transforms into an incredibly unkempt and, at first, primitive human. He is given the human name of Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov. The professor attempts to teach Sharikov basic human manners, but instead Sharikov refuses, and behaves in a very uncivilized manner.
Like Victor’s Creature, Sharikov proceeds to make his Creator’s life a living hell: he floods the apartment, and sexually assaults the female servants. Both creations have a deep hatred for their creators. After a while, the Filip’s servant asks permission to kill Sharikov with arsenic. Filip is horrified and forbids him from doing so. He explains that this creation was meant to improve the human race. In the weeks following, things continue on a downward spiral, and tensions keep building. Finally, Sharikov is returned to his natural form, and gone back to being a gentleman’s canine. However, in the ending of the book, Filip is seen bringing home a human brain, and removing a pituitary gland, and it seems as though he will be trying again to improve the human race.
The novels Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgahov, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley explore the artificial creation of life. Both novels have a creature made with human and animal parts, sewn together to create something new; the Creature is mostly human, Sharikov, mostly dog. Accordingly, Sharikov seems to be more “animal” than human, and so not to fit in; while Shelley’s “Creature” seems more human, and desiring more to be human, but painfully shunned and so lashing out. In both of the novels, the creatures struggle with morality: neither seems beholden to human ethics which are tied to being part of human society. Both cause a great deal of pain, and suffering. The “mad scientists” in both stories had very similar intentions; both fail, and are persecuted by their “monsters.” Both of these novels might be seen to warn against human interference in the creation of new life forms, and human arrogance that results in unforeseen hurtful consequences to everyone, including the new, unregarded built creature.
Administrative Notes: Emalea Marks, Shenandoah University; Dr. David Sandner (editor)