
Brian Doyle is from Portland, Oregon and is the editor of Portland Magazine.  He has won multiple awards for many of his essays, novels, and books. He is a deep writer and often meditates on the “physical and metaphorical properties of the heart” (Doyle 94). In Doyle’s famous essay, “Joyas Volardores,” he uses metaphors of the hummingbird, tortoise, and whale hearts to comment on the human heart. By looking at his word choice, sentence structure, and comparisons and contrasts, we can see that our hearts play a huge role in our lives. Our hearts are meant to experience all kinds of challenges, but in the end it is up to us to get back up and live out our lives. It is also important for us to realize that through all the pain and sorrow that we go through, we cannot keep building a wall around our hearts. We have to open up to others and love trough the life we are given. 

Throughout Doyle’s essay, he uses certain word choices that certainly stand out. For example, his essay starts out by saying, “Consider the hummingbird” (94).  The definition of the word consider is to think deeply about. Here, Doyle could have chosen to use another word such as “reflect” or “think about”, but it would not have been as straight forward.  Doyle’s word choice makes it very clear that he wants us to stop and really dig deep into his metaphors along with facts that are to come about the hummingbird. 

In the third paragraph of Doyle’s essay, he compares the life of the hummingbird to the life of a tortoise to describe the different lifestyles that people live. First, Doyle uses a metaphor to describe the life of a hummingbird. He explains how a hummingbird’s heart beats ten times per second. He states that “their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms than any other living creature” (95). Hummingbirds live very fast lives. They spend their time going, going, and going. Resting can even cause them death. Doyle then goes on to use a different metaphor to describe the life of a tortoise. Tortoise’s lives are the complete opposite of the hummingbird’s. Tortoise live long, slow lives. They live their lives taking their time and enjoying every moment of it. “Every creature has approximately two billion heart beats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old” (95).  Doyle’s comparisons between the hummingbird and the tortoise lifestyles show that it is important how we chose to live our lives.  A hummingbird never stops and rests. It just speeds through life, never stopping to think and pay attention to anything. Doyle describes this lifestyle by saying “You burn out. You fry the machine” (95). The varied sentence structure also emphasizes the contrast between the two lifestyles. Thus, Doyle uses short sentences to describe the hummingbird’s fast-paced life, as to opposed to the longer, more complex ones used to depict how a tortoise goes through life. Doyle’s metaphor of the tortoise shows that if we stop, slow down, and pay attention to what’s going on around us, we will live much happier, longer lives. We have complete control over how we live our life and it is up to us to make the most of every single moment.

Next Doyle uses the metaphor of the whale heart to comment on love and how we as humans compartmentalize our hearts. First, Doyle states facts about the whale and describes the size of its heart. He explains the heart of the whale “as big as a room” (95). He states that “A child could walk around in it” (95). Here, Doyle has made sure to emphasize the size and function of the whale’s heart by relating it to a child. Doyle uses these facts to compare and contrast the size of the whale’s heart to the size of the hummingbird’s heart. While doing so, Doyle doesn’t want the reader to only focus on the animals. He wants the reader to dig deeper than that and realize that no matter the size of the heart, it is still a heart. It is still the one thing that “drives” (95) us. It is still the one thing that keeps us alive. Doyle also says, “No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside” (96). He wants the reader to understand that even though something such as bacteria may not have an actual heart, there is always something there that keeps that bacteria alive. Doyle also refers to reptiles, turtles, fish, and insects as examples. Each creature has a unique heart, but each heart of the individual creature churns inside. 

Doyle says that “of the largest animal who ever lived, we know nearly nothing” (95). Doyle isn’t talking about the size of the animal here. He is using a metaphor to describe the way that humans work. He is comparing and contrasting the size of the heart to the amount of things that humans open up about. For example, as big as the heart of the whale is, we should know all kinds of things about it. Unfortunately, that isn’t how our hearts work. Doyle used the word “chambers” to describe this theory. The definition of the word chamber is defined as being a closed off space or cavity. Doyle makes his point out to be that we all compartmentalize our heart in some sort of way. We are not open with others. We don’t experience things that we were made to experience. We compartmentalize our hearts so much because we are afraid of being hurt. We are afraid of failure. Doyle also says, “the animals with the largest hearts generally travel in pairs” (95). Doyle is showing that through the whales, it is so important to love. It’s a part of life and we need to experience it.  Doyle finishes his sentence by saying, “and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles” (95). Although the whales travel in pairs and seem like they would be a great example of something that is happy, they are also hurting. The more they love, the greater chance they have of being hurt. This can apply to humans too. We allow our hearts to love so much but we know that the more we love, the greater pain we are going to potentially feel. 

By taking a deeper look into the metaphors of the hummingbird, tortoise, and whale hearts, it’s easy to see that our heart is one of the most significant forces in our life. We have complete control over how we use our heart beats. We can either live our lives fast and not pay attention to the things around us, or we can live our lives slow and enjoy every moment of it. Our hearts also play an important role in our vulnerability. Doyle uses one last metaphor in the last paragraph as he notes that “We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of heart” (96). He unpacks this metaphor by saying that we as humans keep to ourselves. We never open up to others because we are afraid of being hurt. Doyle says “all hearts finally are bruised and scared, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore” (96). Doyle is saying that no matter what, our hearts are going to face some challenges, but it is ultimately up to us to get back up on our feet and start again. He also says “You can brick your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant” (95). We may try to build chambers around our hearts and not let anyone in because we don’t want to get hurt, but that’s not how our heart works. All of the chambers that we build up are just going to end up falling. We are called to live this life to the fullest in every aspect and we should do so by loving life and loving others. 
