SOURCE: "Points of View in Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog" in Russian Literature Triquarterly, No. 15, 1978, pp. 281-91.

Goscilo is a Scottish-born American critic, editor, and translator who specializes in Russian literature. In the following essay, she discusses the shifts of narrative voice in The Heart of a Dog.

Four narrative voices may be distinguished in Heart of a Dog: those of Sharik, Bormenthal, Professor Preobrazhensky, and an "impartial" commentator. Whereas the first three offer limited points of view, the fourth (with a few minor exceptions) is omniscient. Structure and point of view furnish mutual reinforcement, for Bulgakov allows the alternations in viewpoint to coincide roughly with the four divisions of the story: Chapters I through IV (preoperation and operation) are filtered chiefly through Sharik's eyes; Chapter V (immediate post-operative results) comprises Bormenthal's laboratory journal; Chapters VI to IX (long-range effects of transformation) are mostly omniscient narration with occasional...