




Doyle states in “Joyas Volardores”, “So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment” (96). Of course, the lifetime of someone is full of different experiences, new things. Most of us do believe life is a long journey; however, Brian Doyle gives us different perspectives to look at our life.  he also emphasizes the meaning of the moments in people’s lives. Considering how to live and how to love, there is no doubt that love is one of the most important emotions in a human’s life. In “Joyas Volardores”, Brian Doyle uses scientific language describing animal hearts to contextualize emotional language, which shows how people live life differently, but are still capable of love. 

Each one in the world is unique, trying to love and chase the meaning of life fully, but in predictably diverse ways. At first, Doyle gives an example about the hummingbird, which has unique physical structures: “Their heart beats ten times a second”, “Their hearts are the size of pencil eraser”, “they can fly five hundred miles without pausing to rest” (94). They have such an elaborate physical structure. However, their unique physical makeup causes them to approach death much quicker than other animals; there is usually only around two years’ life available for most hummingbirds. Their flight habits will not allow them to live a very long time, as author notes, “flight is expensive” (95). Flight is so necessary for immediate survival that the hummingbird uses it to the detriment of a longer life. Doyle uses scientific tones to describe the unique things about hummingbirds; the author has not reached the emotional level yet, but it does compel readers to rethink traditional values. Hummingbirds love and require flight so much that they ignore their small and fairly limited vascular organ. But even if they have to burn precious energy and limit their lifespans, their lives are certainly not wasted and are experienced in the moment, at every moment. Doyle writes in the article, “Each one visits a thousand flowers a day” (95), suggesting that hummingbirds love flowers very much, each of them dreaming to see every kind of flower in the world, which represents their goal within their two available years of existence. It is crazy for the others, but it is meaningful for them. So we can see the way a person spends his/her lifetime, and the way a person loves what he/she loves, which are also significantly meaningful in a person’s life.

On the other hand, the meaning of life is different for each one of us, it leads people to have a different life style. On the opposite of hummingbird, the author brings up the other example, blue whale; they have the biggest heart in the world, “their heart is big like a room with four chambers”, “it weighs more than seven tones” (95), comparing with hummingbird, their life is much more peaceful and stable, even though we know nearly nothing about them. Concluding, the author mentions the blue whale’s life in the article: Birth, growth, living with partner, death – this sample process could tell most of things in a blue whale’s life. Additionally, it is worth noticing that the way Doyle describe blue whale’s heart, “children could walk around it”, “it’s waaaaay bigger than your car” (96). It makes readers imagine and feel their hearts’ size easily and gives the reader a deep and vivid impression. Due to the first example of hummingbird that the author has given in the article, hummingbird’s pretty little heart beats very frequently for their crazy flight, so what are blue whales going to do with their huge heart?  It lets readers expect exciting things or even crazy things about blue whale, but the readers actually can not get the expected answer in the “blue whale part” of this article. Doyle makes a huge contrast between hummingbird and blue whale. He explains physical differences, and those physical things let readers reach out the emotional level more or less. In my point of view, the author captures a universal human truth, that all of us are sensitive about death and life, in the fact almost everyone pays too much attentions on that huge life process, even ignoring the meaning of life. There are no judgments about the blue whale’s life style in this article, because everyone’s values and favorite things are different. The author uses the device of contrast by discussing hummingbird and blue whale to remind readers to rethink their own style of living life.

There is no exactly perfect life for each one in the world; if you are winning something, you are losing something else. So finding your own style to live and to love is very important. By thinking about those two exactly different creatures, they have different values and meaning about their life, so that they spent their lifetime by different ways. Therefore, there are more understandings about they way they live. Blue whale’s heart is such a huge, even though they didn’t use it like hummingbird, obviously, they can live very much longer than hummingbirds do, and they have very quiet and peaceful life that is totally different from hummingbirds’. Like author mentions in the article, “Nothing is known of mating habits, travel patterns, diet, social life, language, social structure, diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs and arts of blue whale” (95).  Blue whale lives safer lives comparing with hummingbird, but the whole life stories can be told of blue whale are not as many as hummingbird. Do hummingbirds live more interesting or exciting life?  “Yes, they do.” But, do blue whales live much safer life? “Yes, they do.”  So form here, lifetime is no longer is limited by length of their life, there are much more amazing things about them is they live the life they prefer to.  They were born physically different, and they have their special life style.

Doyle uses scientific language to describe hummingbird and blue whale. Those facts are about to tell the readers that it is just a scientific essay about the habits of humming bird, which actually is not the truth. He starts evoking the readers’ emotion by providing the truth of huge different size of these two mammals’ hearts. He draws the readers’ attentions By emphasizing the physical facts, which is humanistic qualities. He uses these two creatures figuring people around us. However, those scientific languages leave a clue to reader until he reaches out the emotional level. The emotional language evokes people’s potentially and deeply emotional feelings. Such as, people have different life style, they catch up different things, goals in their life, they are doctors, policemen, or people just lost job, they are mothers, friends, sons, they also could be heroes or ordinaries. Some of them would love to live peaceful and quiet life like blue whale, some of them prefer to live the busy and challenging life like hummingbird. Everyone chooses their life and live their life differently, meanings of life for individual can very, because of these varieties, the world becomes such a colorful place. And there are no rules for each one of us to live a kind of life which is perfect, or how to love something or someone which is correct. 

It is fair to say that the author successfully highlights the emotional language at the end of article which is contrasted by scientific language. He connects the hummingbird and blue whale with humans, all of which have emotions, and life. Whether that heart is fragile or strong, it does support us to live, to love. A lot of things have happened in a person’s entire life, so many people have gone through a person’s life.  We have loved, as well as have gotten hurt, it always happens. Doyle writes, “That all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, sored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore” (96). Think about what we have been going through, please treasure it, because it is the pieces of the moment that are filling our lifetime. 


