As hummingbirds zip past, think about their sounds; the sound of a mini racecar bringing the final hum into the evening sunset. Think about how quickly a hummingbird’s tiny wings have to flap, and how quickly their even tinier hearts have to beat to keep up. A hummingbird’s heart beats about ten times a second, 600 times a minute, or 36,000 times an hour. Doyle says, “Consider for a moment those hummingbirds who did not open their eyes again today… each thunderous wild heart the size on an infant’s fingernail, each mad heart silent, a brilliant music stilled.” (95). He then lists sixteen different species of hummingbirds, adding to the effect of how many tiny hearts are forever stilled each night. This is just one example of how Doyle appeals to pathos while simultaneously talking about the heart’s anatomical function, within every paragraph. He forces whomever is reading to dig deeper into their hearts and find what makes their heart skip and what makes their heart stop. He is emphasizing how precious and valuable life is and that everybody can live it in different ways. The structure of one’s heart can limit them to live a certain way, or it can free them to do anything imaginable.

Doyle’s constant switching back and forth between the anatomical purpose and the emotional purpose of the heart creates an interesting comparison of love and survival. By doing this he is opening many doors of the heart. He mentions briefly how the different chambers of a whale’s heart have different functions anatomically. By saying “this house of a heart”, Doyle could be inferring that the different chambers house different emotions (95). What if the ventricles are responsible for suppressing, while the atriums are responsible for expressing? Blood gets pumped through every chamber of the heart before it is released into the rest of the body, just like every experience has to pass through every chamber of the heart before an emotion is felt. Imagine if emotions circulated through the body like blood. They would flow through the body and eventually reach the brain where they would be acknowledged and interpreted. They would become vital to every part of the body’s survival. The constant flow through the body could produce conflicting emotions. After being detoxified by the liver and reprocessed by the brain the alterations on the emotions can cause a conflict at heart.

When Doyle first mentions the whale’s heart he compares the size of the heart to the magnitude of the animal, which is enormous, “It weighs more than seven tons. It is as big as a room… a child could walk around it, head high, bending only to step through the valves” (95). A whale’s heart is so large because they are such compassionate and caring creatures. They never leave their young, and according to Doyle they almost always travel in pairs. Going on he states all of the things humans do not understand about whales, such as; diet, language, diseases, travel patterns, spirituality. He then states the one thing humans do know, “The animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles.” (Doyle, 95-96). Why do the creatures with the largest hearts always travel in pairs? Could it be because their partner is a sense of security, or do they feel as if they cannot make it along life’s journey alone? Even whales, creatures with the hearts as big as rooms, need love to feel alive. The heart plays an important role in everyday life. It not only regulates blood flow and has a proportionate size to the animal it inhabits, but it is held responsible for housing love, anger and sympathy.

Doyle lastly talks about the human heart. He doesn’t take the time to talk about the heart anatomically because there are so many emotions the human heart houses that every person experiences.

“So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one in the end – not mother and father, not wife and husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart.” (Doyle, 96). 

Doyle holds the heart accountable for everything. Interpreting life experiences and allowing life itself. Seeing that special someone across the room causes the heart to race, which in turn quickly uses up the limited two billion heartbeats a heart can produce in a lifetime. His statement, “we are utterly open with no one in the end”, contradicts everything people say. People constantly lecture about how others need to open their hearts to let people in, yet Doyle says doing exactly that leads to having “no one in the end” (96). Does opening the doors to the heart mean one is more willing to accept vulnerability or that one is more open to feel a variety of emotions? It ties in with his statement, “we open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart”, saying no matter how close people are with one another, in the end the “we are alone” because the only thing that keeps people alive is already thriving inside themselves (96). 

His final sentence punches emotional barriers in the gut. He forces the reader to think about the things every person dreads. The words “I have something to tell you”, or thinking back to “your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes”, or “your mother’s papery ancient hand” (Doyle, 96). He wants the reader to figure out what aspects in their life mean the most, and the things people don’t realize they are going to miss until they are gone. He forces everybody that encounters these words to feel these words. With intention. With agony. With vulnerability. With love. 