
In life we have an option, to go through the motions and to simply co-exist or make the best of every precious moment we have offered to us in life. Every day we have 1,440 minutes to choose how to spend. This may seem like a lot but we can all agree that number comes much smaller when compared to 115,200: how many times the average human heart beats in one day. Brian Doyle does a magnificent job of making it a point that humans are not the only thing to exist and experience life, but in fact our lives are so much more complex than those of the simple things around us. One often fails to realize the magnitude and complexity of this thing we call life. Throughout the piece, “Joyas Volardores”, Doyle uses many literary devices, a unique style, and a comparison strategy to convey a strong message to a large audience that allows the reader to analyze how they will spend their two billion heartbeats; a lifetime.

Analyzing the author’s background is an avid detail that helps the reader thoroughly and fully understand the author’s text. Brian Doyle is a prestigious author who had won may many awards for his work including one of his anthologies Best of American Science and Nature Writing. As an audience member, this sparked the possible answer to my question, why write a short story on hummingbirds? Knowing this background information is helpful starting right in the first paragraph when Doyle writes, “Hummingbirds came into the world only in the Americas, nowhere else in the universe (pg.94).” Doyle has a strong focus on American literature and nature which is very respectable and valuable as a reader. Background information is just one tool provided that leads to deeper understanding and connection to a literary work.

Doyle’s strong use of literary devices leads to deep thought by the reader. For example, Doyle writes, “To drive those metabolisms they have race car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate (pg.95).” In this particular example Doyle uses a metaphor to describe the rate of a hummingbird’s metabolism, but in a way that the speed is put into perspective. This metaphor also leaves room for the reader to analyze and figure out, exactly how fast is a racecar and/or what is “eye-popping rate” in terms of speed. This quote can be related back to the authors main point of choosing how we want to live our lives, fast and short or long and slow. To us our hearts beat at a “normal”, constant, steady rate but to any other living thing their heart beat is normal to them too. This is just another example of how everyone has a different normal. Later in the piece when discussing how to spend a lifetime the use of a few similes come into play. “You can spend them slowly like a tortoise [….] or you can spend them fast like a hummingbird” (pg.95). In this quote Doyle is explaining one of the main points in his piece and wants that to be clear to readers. The use of a simile is more straight forward than a metaphor which explains Doyle’s choice to use that here. Doyle uses another metaphor when describing the size of a hummingbird’s heart stating, “thunderous wild heart the size of an infant’s fingernail (147).” When writing may author’s use similes when they have strong idea to get across whereas metaphors leave the interpretation up to the reader. It is hard for a reader to picture the exact size of an infant’s fingernail but it can be assumed by all it is very small. Doyle’s strong use of literary devices leads into his unique writing style, that draws the reader in.

Doyle has a way with words that not only draw the reader’s attention but is capable of conveying a deeper meaning with everything he writes. Doyle’s style is unique in the way that he is constantly comparing and contrasting, along with using hummingbirds as the main topic of this piece. Doyle states a simple fact, “A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser (pg. 94)” which led me, as the reader, to wonder how large was the human heart in comparison. It is believed to be true that the human heart is the size of a fist, about 100 times the size of a hummingbird’s heart. From this simple fact, we put a lot into comparison. Doyle later states, “The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs more than seven tons. It is a room, with four chambers” (pg.95). This quote proves that even though the heart is an integral part of all life, not one is the same. One can use this in everyday life when found comparing themselves to others. While the author’s style provides crucial life lessons, Doyle’s tone is just as crucial in conveying his message to readers. 

Doyle relates back to his unique style by shifting tones throughout this piece. Doyle starts with a reflective and joyful tone which very quickly shifted to an intense and straight forward tone. Doyle writes, “They can fly more than 500 miles without pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death” (pg.95). This shift in tone is a technique used by the author to keep the reader’s attention. Without this shift, the whole piece may run together or cause the reader to become inattentive. It would be more difficult for the reader to understand the meaning beyond the words on a page, without a sense of a harsh tone. Doyle brings to the attention of the reader how costly it is for a hummingbird to perform a daily task; fly. He writes, “The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine (pg. 95).” One is able to detect the change in tone from Doyle when the sentence length shifts. Short sentences refer to the importance of what Doyle is stating. There is no further need for explanation, hence Doyle’s short mannered tone. This aspect of sentence length also contributes to the aspect of interpretation. Doyle’s tone allows the reader to be open minded. As an audience member this quote put our lives into context in the way that risk comes with every little thing we embark on. The risk may not be as severe but every little thing we do still builds up and will eventually cause “the machine” to burn out.

Doyle ends his piece with an eloquently worded paragraph, that causes most readers to stop and pause to process shortly after finishing. Tone, style, and strategy all come into play to convey Doyle’s deepest message in the piece; that we cannot avoid fear, pain, the bruises and scars that come with life. Amongst those two billion heartbeats one often tries to build a wall around their heart and only let love in. Yet as Doyle states, “You can Brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can down it comes in an instant (pg.96).” Doyle is proving here that we are meant to experience such deep emotions in life, if one does not experience them all frankly they are not living. Comparing many hearts simply to prove they all experience the same, leads us to the endpoint of his piece by slowly drawing the reader back to reality, relating everything just read to one’s day-to-day life. Doyle taught readers to analyze nature, and the littlest details in life just to prove the complexity of ours. Most importantly, Doyle attained his goal of causing every reader to question, how should one spend their two billion heartbeats?
