Professor And The Doctor Use Sharik example essay topic

Heart of a Dog: A Change of System, Not of Ways Mikhail Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog is a scathing criticism of the Bolsheviks and the state which they created. Bulgakov's characters in the house in Moscow are a microcosm of the society in 1926 Russian cities. What happens in the house is a representation of what has happened since the revolution and what is happening in 1926 Russia. The characters represent different sections of a society which is supposed to be without classes, but still has some of the old elite intelligentsia, Professor Philip Philippovich and Dr. Bormenthal, a new class of elite, Shvonder and the members of the house committee, and the same old dog of society, the peasants and workers.

Sharik, later known as Sharikov, is the peasantry and the factory workers. The operation which gives Sharik the new opportunity as Sharikov does not give him a chance to excel because the other two groups still control everything needed to survive and because of the background of his new self are not conducive to such a positive change. Each part of the society gives its views on how the society should be run and on how the present system is thwarting its goals. Bulgakov's criticisms show how the elite may be new, but the heart and soul of Russia, the peasants, are still in the same miserable situation as they were before the Bolsheviks came to power. The miserable condition of the peasants of Russia is represented by the situation that Sharik the dog finds himself in. Starving and freezing in the Moscow winter, Sharik is turned aside and abused by the new proletariat, which is acting only in its own best interest due to the system of the NEP which could not provide for everyone.

There are some good people who help the down trodden, but they are a rarity. An example of such a good person was Vlas, who was a cook for the upper classes. He wanted nothing in return for his goodness. Professor Philippovich seems at first to be such a good person, but he is serving his own interest. Sharik praises the professor for being such a gentleman, but Sharik of course does not know that the professor only wants a healthy patient for his experiment which he sees as doomed to fail and thus will kill the patient. Although Sharik constantly thinks, I m off to paradise.

Brothers, murderers, why are you doing this to me? (15, Bulgakov) whenever the professor and doctor start to do something to him, he does not leave because he needs the professor to survive. Professor Philippovich leads the unwitting dog down a road towards a path which the professor believes should help his theories on how to make dogs, the peasantry, be able to help themselves and heal faster. Before the experiment even takes place, Sharik expresses his discontentment with his confinement and lack of self control through little uprisings throughout the apartment. He destroys the watchful owl among other things in the apartment. The professor is reluctant to punish Sharik, because he feels the only way to truly change such a state of existence is not through threats and suppression, but through positive reinforcement to build up trust and education, i.e. by way of rubbing Sharik's nose in the mess which he created.

It is the very trust which the doctor is trying to foster that the professor betrays with his own hubris. Professor Philippovich's loyal assistant Dr. Bormenthal sees Sharik's uprisings as a greater problem than the professor and suggests more stringent punishment and ways to maintain order within the apartment. Although Dr. Bormenthal adheres to his mentor's advice on how to punish Sharik, it is against his nature to do so. He sees Sharik merely as an implement, as it were a vessel, needed to carry out the next experiment.

He fails to see Sharik as an entity. Dr. Bormenthal's failure to see Sharik, and later Sharikov as his equal or even worthy of life without confinement is a sign of his elitism. When Shvonder and his three comrades of the house management committee come to talk to the professor the first time they take no notice of Sharik. Sharik notices the open hostility between his master and the four visitors. Sharik understands the content of their disagreement, but no one takes notice of him. The peasant is once again being left out of the discussion about property and the right to maintain one's own private territory.

Sharik does see that his master is able to turn back these armed Bolsheviks with simple words. He is a protected man with great influence among those who can control his fate. Professor Philippovich criticizes the failings of the Bolshevik society as he eats an exquisite dinner in a gentleman like manner in a time of starvation throughout Russia. His lack of knowing what the common people experience is apparent as he sings songs about foreign cities and countries.

He discusses how things have only gotten worse since March of 1917. Things have been stolen, the service is not as good as it once was, and the less desirable people have moved into apartments which were previously occupied by his peers. He says that the Bolsheviks have driven the country into rack and ruin. The professor amuses himself with a Bolshevik slogan: 'Fight economic ruin!'.

.. It means that everyone of them should whip himself on the head! And when he knocks all the hallucinations out and begins to clean out the barns -which is his job in the first place- the general ruin will disappear of itself ' (39). This is a direct attack on the Bolshevik's New Economic Policy, and that if the Bolsheviks, who are not meant to control anything but the instruments used for manual labor, were to leave the economy be self determining, everything would take care of itself.

He also wants to ban the chanting of Bolshevik slogans, which he hates hearing in the building. These are dangerous statements, but he knows that he is protected by officials within the Bolshevik party. Bulgarov shows how intensely the professor believes in the economic incentives of capitalism as he is constantly slipping money to Dr. Bormenthal and Fyodor, effectively blackmailing Sharik and then Sharikov with food, and by his complaining of loosing money when Sharikov floods the apartment. The professor believes everything can be controlled with monetary power. The professor and the doctor use Sharik to fulfill their own wishes of greatness.

They wants to make Sharik better, to permanently altar his state of being without his consent and without knowing his history or that of the to be implanted brain. In doing so, the professor and doctor know that Sharik will die, but they see this as a simple inconvenience of their experiment which will give them greater insight to how the brain works. In other words, the intelligentsia could live with the deaths of peasants if that is the price of revolution. Their plan to kill Sharik does not work, and instead they have a patient on their hands which they understand even less.

As a dog, Sharik was a peasant that was unable to audibly make his wishes and requests, so the professor and doctor did not worry about his consciousness. But now, Sharikov is able to and is more than willing to express himself in the only manners he knows, which are crude and unpleasant to a gentleman such as the professor. The professor and doctor once again prove how little they understand of the peasantry when they assume that dogs read backwards due to the nature of the dog's optical nerves. Sharikov spoke fish store backwards because someone was standing in front of the first part of the expression when he was learning to read the words, not because of some optical nerve. The professor realizes faster than the doctor the errors of their ways, but he is still not willing to change the experiment back. Sharik, whose last thoughts as a dog are those of freedoms enjoyed as a puppy, now has the brain of a human convict and is fit to be incarcerated.

Sharik undergoes a physical metamorphosis and becomes Sharikov, human in stature. The professor also realizes faster than the doctor that they should have looked closer at the past of the human whose brain they used. Philip Philippovich is now a quasi-illegitimate father of a criminal. He is constantly scolding Sharikov for habits which were acceptable when he was a dog. Bulgarov is showing how the peasants are being asked to change their very nature to fit in the new society which is thrust upon them. In order to achieve the obedience which was natural before, the person with power, in this case the professor, imposes many rules.

If the peasants, Sharikov, complain, the person in power claims what a great service it has done for the peasantry... How could anyone complain about becoming a member of free society with just a few rules? Sharikov's answer for the peasantry is that everyone has the same rights and no one is above them. Sharikov no longer revels in his master's freedoms, but wants his own, and this means having documents.

The professor wants to keep Sharikov away from the public, but this is impossible. Shvonder sees Sharikov, wants to help him obtain documents of existence, and possibly gain the benefit of putting the professor in an uncomfortable situation. Shvonder puts the very words and slogans which the professor hates into Sharikov's head. Bulgarov is showing how anyone and everyone can simply recite a catchy slogan without understanding them. Sharikov says, I want a registration card. I don t wish to be a deserter (73).

Then when it comes time to get the document form the professor, Sharikov gets into an argument with Shvonder, because Sharik claims that 'I'll register, but if it comes to fighting, they can kiss... ' (76). Bulgarov is showing how the peasantry is willing to put up with the Bolsheviks as long as they do not have to fight for them and they get a part of everything which has been denied to them so far. As Sharikov puts it, 'Just take everything and divide it up... It's plain enough. What do you think?

One man spreads himself out in seven rooms and has forty pair of pants, and another hangs around garbage dumps, looking for something to eat. ' (89-90) Sharikov believes everything should by divided among the poor, but that is not what the Bolsheviks are professing. He does not understand that the NEP is allowing people to lease land and companies for personal gain and that the Bolsheviks are nationalizing everything which is not leased. So, the pants and land will go to the state, not the peasantry. Philip Philippovich's low regard for the Bolsheviks is paralleled by his low regard for the peasantry and workers. He refers to them as 'being generally behind Europeans by some two hundred years' (37).

He continues to deride the peasantry: You are a feeble creature just in the process of formation, with a feeble intellect. All your actions are the actions of an animal. Yet you permit yourself to speak with utterly insufferable impudence in the presence of two people with a university education-to offer advice on a cosmic scale and of equally cosmic stupidity on how to divide everything... Just get it straight! Keep your nose out of things... and remember that you must keep quiet and listen to what you are told. Try to learn, try to become a more or less acceptable member of socialist society (91).

This is the most direct attack made by Philip Philippovich on the peasantry. While the intelligentsia helped bring the peasantry and workers to and through the revolution with its ideology, the majority of the intelligentsia do not believe that the peasants and workers are ready for a socialist society. They see them as being backwards and unable to make the correct decisions based on reasoning and the understanding of the socialist ideology. It is the anomalistic behavior which drew the peasants and workers to the Bolsheviks instead of the more sound socialist parties. The peasants main drive was the question of land, and the Bolsheviks were the party willing to say keep what you have taken. The professor wanted to get Sharikov his own apartment.

Sharikov declined saying that he wanted to stay there and had the right to stay there according to the paperwork, which the professor had only reluctantly signed. Sharikov had the right to a portion of the professor's apartment. The seizure of part of the professor's apartment which had been previously sacrosanct from all such actions, was enough for Sharikov to accept Bolshevik power and to enlist in helping the Bolsheviks eradicate some problems. Sharikov, whose ignorance of ideology and pursuit of action is an ideal tool to be used by the Bolsheviks, is hired to clean the city of Moscow of all cats and others pests. The purge of the leaders and members of the revolutionary movement in Russia is being executed by the very people they had wanted to help. Sharikov sees these cats as being of no common good.

This is the propaganda in the Bolshevik propaganda newspapers. Sharikov is easily taken with this, because it suits him, but Shvonder believes that he believes in the cause. But the only cause Sharikov believes in is his own. Professor Philippovich realizes this and knows that Sharikov could turn on anyone if it would improve his lot in life: I realized it ten days after the operation. But the point is that this Shvonder is the worst fool of all. He does not understand that Sharikov is a far greater menace to him than he to me.

Today he does everything to sick him on me, without realizing that if anyone should then turn him against Shvonder himself, nothing will be left of him or his. (105) With this one statement, the professor shows that he now realizes that trying to change the peasantry for one's own purposes is futile and fleeting, because it will eventually start acting out in its own interests. And in the case of Sharikov, the own self interest would be the utmost vile and contemptible behavior. The professor and doctor operate one more time on Sharikov, who then becomes a dog physically once again, and the words which were spoken are forgotten with time. The professor was reluctant to do this because he wanted to see Sharikov turn on the Bolsheviks, but the damage to the innocent people of Russia, like the young woman Sharikov was trying to trick into going to bed with him, would have suffered to much. Shvonder is still not aware of the grave which Sharikov represented for him, because he thought that he could control him.

Professor Philippovich is not happy to see Shvonder and his survive, for he would 'hang that Shvonder... on the first dry branch... The astonishing swine, like an abscess on the house' (92). The professor sees that the only way to avoid a bloody turmoil is to let the Bolsheviks stay in power. Professor Philippovich and the Intelligentsia, whom the Bolsheviks were a part of, brought the February Revolution to fruition by informing the peasants and workers. It was to be a great socialist experiment. All the socialist parties were to be represented in the Constituent Assembly, but one of the members did not wait.

The majority socialist parties believed Russia to be to backward as Philippovich does, and felt that the time was not right for the communism. They felt it was necessary for a capitalistic society to develop in order for the workers to gain their social consciousness. The Bolsheviks acted while the others waited for the transition to take place. The Bolsheviks gave birth to the new society which was fathered by the Intelligentsia. Then the Bolsheviks told the peasants and workers what their social consciousness should be. The Intelligentsia who remained after the purges were the illegitimate fathers of the October Revolution.

Their unwillingness or inability to protect the uninformed peasantry from the Bolsheviks is what caused the great experiment to go awry. It gave birth to the Shvonder of Russia who used and abused their power to create a new social elite. It was the end of all progress for the workers and peasantry as the true ideologies of the experiment were sacrificed for power. Sharikov is operated on again, and he is once again an obedient dog, whose only concern is that he get his food for the day, while his master is the same as before.

The elite have been exchanged for another set, but they are still out of touch with the peasants as they hum, 'Towards the sacred banks of the Nile... ' (123).