Brian Doyle wrote Joyas Voladoras with an approach to understand the interesting and unique way humans live and the way we love. He came up with examples to explain these ways of living in the way that anyone, of any age, can understand. The use of animals allows the reader to visualize the size of the heart and animal; therefore this makes it easier for the reader to comprehend the example being given. Besides the theme of lifestyles, the theme of love is also brought into the story when Doyle uses a blue whale to exemplify an animal with a big heart. Doyle is using an animal heart as a metaphor for human life. He is comparing hearts to the kind of life we live by reflecting to human experience. Throughout his work, Doyle is exhausting the fact that human life is sacred and fragile and we must not take it for granted. The heartbeat is more than just the pulsation of the heart, but rather to Doyle it is a metaphor of how humans live similarly and differently. The heartbeat, in this context, works in different ways depending on the animal it is inhibiting. 

The metaphorical heart is used as an example when Doyle brings up the size of the hummingbird’s heart, which is the same size of a pencil eraser to give the reader a visual of how small it is. He continues on in the second paragraph to explain their talents, “dive at sixty miles an hour... fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest” (Doyle 273). He also does this to go more into depth about how the heart of a hummingbird is small and fragile, yet built better and stronger than other animals. The name that the first explorers of America gave hummingbirds was “Joyas Voladoras”, which means “flying jewels”, and in this case relates to the fact the hummingbirds are tiny, beautiful, flying birds. Doyle begins the short story by discussing the heartbeat of the hummingbird, which is a strong opening because he beings with the smallest animal yet describes how the heart can be big and strong; “A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of the pencil eraser. A hummingbird’s heart is a lot of the hummingbird” (Doyle 94). Doyle is explaining that the hummingbird’s heart makes up the animal itself, he is saying that even though the hummingbird is small, it is filled with heart. Size cannot determine the amount of love and empathy someone or something holds. However, he brings up the fact that hummingbirds have fragile hearts, which he compares to how fragile life is and how it can be. At any time in your life you can feel like you are on top of the world but in an instant you can feel as if you are so close to death just like that of a hummingbird - they are strong yet fragile animals. The inspiration for this writing comes from Doyle’s own life; his son was born with three out of four chambers in his heart. So Doyle, for one, knows how sacred and fragile life is. He is conveying his own life and the life of others in the metaphorical heart of the hummingbird. The questions comes up, how is the word “heart” used to describe different things? It is used as an organ and in an emotional way. We view a heart as what pumps our blood throughout our body and keeps us alive while others view it is a way of holding onto feelings. In this sense, Doyle is describing it both ways. He is symbolizing it is an organ to convey the lifestyles of others. And as an emotional way to explain how it can differ from other people, how it can make people live and do things differently. 

In the third paragraph, Doyle brings up the metaphor of the heart again to convey that hummingbirds live their lives at a fast pace; “the price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures more than any other living creature...You burn out. You fry the machine” (Doyle 273).  He is comparing that we too, can live our life this way but it will most likely result in us not living a long life due to the fact that our life will be moving so fast. With this, he is comparing the life of a hummingbird to that of the life of a tortoise. Doyle goes on to describe that with “approximately two billion heartbeats” (Doyle 274) our life can be lived in contrasting ways. The ways we can live differently are that of living like a hummingbird; you live about two years but all over the place and that of a tortoise; to live two hundred years but slow and calmly. With all life comes different examples of love and with this Doyle uses a blue whale to display this. He goes onto explain how the blue whale has the biggest heart and how their hearts are "as big as a room. It is a room, with four chambers. A child could walk around in..." (Doyle 274). With this, Doyle wants the reader to envision the hummingbird’s heart and compare how a heart the size of a pencil eraser would be able to fit into the “rooms” of the blue whale’s heart. 

A heart has one job and that is to pump blood throughout the body and keep us alive, both hearts, no matter the size , keep the animals alive - rather it being as small as a pencil eraser or as big as a room - it is there to let us live our lives. Everybody is different, we all have different lifestyles and therefore we all have different “hearts”. Some of us can keep a fast pace all day just like a hummingbird and some are slower and take their time, just like that of a tortoise. Doyle is basically saying these are two ways we choose to live your lives. Some go through life very quickly and at a fast pace, while others take life by the minute and much more slowly and carefully. Doyle is describing two different lifestyles - he is not saying one way of living is necessarily better than the other, just what you choose is what is the best for you and where you really feel most comfortable and loved. Doyle goes onto to say, "so much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment" (274) to explain that you should never take life for granted, it is important and it will always be important you should enjoy every second you have on this Earth - every second your heart is pumping blood throughout your body, giving you love and life. 
