The heart is a significant organ that every living animal or human has that is necessary for life.  Brian Doyle uses the heart to symbolize the meaning of life and how fragile or not life can be.  The Joyas Volardores, translated as “hummingbirds” have a heart the size of a pencil eraser and it takes up a large percentage of space in its body (Doyle 94).  Brian Doyle uses the hummingbird and many other animals to represent his understanding of what the meaning of life really is.  By looking at diction, figurative language, and logical appeal, we can see that by comparing the similarities and differences between many animals and humans shows that there are many ways to live life.  This is important because this shows that every living thing is similar but also different in their very own way.

In the text, diction plays an important role in the readers’ understanding of the author’s explanation of what life really is.  The forms of diction that are used in the text help portray the message in the text are repetition, hyperboles, and some juxtaposition.  The first form of repetition identified in the passage describes many different species of hummingbirds.  The author chose this animal for a reason.  By stating all of the different species of hummingbirds it shows the reader that there is not only one type of hummingbird which has a slight significance to the theme of the text. Later in the text, the blue whale is introduced.  The author uses the blue whale and the hummingbird as the main comparison in the passage because of the size difference in their hearts. The author uses slight exaggeration to help the reader comprehend how significant the difference in these two animals really is.  In the text, the author describes the hummingbird by claiming that they have incredible, enormous, and ferocious metabolisms because of how tiny their hearts really are (Doyle 95).  Then the author compares the size of the blue whale’s heart by stating that it is a room with four chambers (Doyle 95).  Another major instance of repetition and comparison that plays an important part in the theme of the text is, “Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber . . .” (Doyle 96).  The author chooses to write these facts in form of repetition to draw the readers’ attention to it.  These statements show the differences in the number of chambers in the hearts of different animals, which shows the reader that all animals are different.   Subsequently after these statements in the text the following is stated, “No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside” (Doyle 96). These statements give the reader a realization that every living thing are similar in this way, which makes every living thing similar but different.

The difference between the size of the hummingbird and the blue whale is extremely significant. The text contains many uses of figurative language which is used to increase the reader’s understanding.  The first animal introduced in the text which the passage mainly revolves around is the hummingbird.  The hummingbird is very unique animal that the author chose for some specific reason. In the text the author compares the hummingbird’s heart to a race car engine because of how much oxygen it uses up (Doyle 95). While describing the hummingbird the author also states that, “It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine” (Doyle 95). The author compares the hummingbird’s heart to a machine and the blue whale’s heart to a room because these are things that the audience is probably familiar with.  This is just a technique that is used to help the reader imagine the difference between these two animals more clearly.

The hummingbird has one of the smallest hearts in the world and the blue whale has the biggest heart in the world. The text contains logical statements like these which are used to compare and contrast the different lifestyles of different animals.  In the text the author describes the hummingbird’s life to be very tough. A specific example of how hard their lives can be is that, “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” (Doyle 95).  The blue whale on the other hand is the largest animal in the world and when it is born it is twenty feet long and weighs four tons (Doyle 95).  These two facts show how unique and different these two animals are.  Although these two animals have different lifestyles and are on opposite sides of the spectrum from each other they are still similar in some way. According to the text, “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime (Doyle 95). This statement is extremely significant in the fact that every living thing on earth is similar because they all have to spend the same amount of heartbeats in their lifetimes but in different ways.

The heart is the most significant part of any living thing.  The heart’s significance is made most clear in this part of the passage, “So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment” (Doyle 96).  By looking at the comparisons of different living things through diction, figurative language, and logical appeal, we can see that every living thing is different but also they are the same. Every living thing may have different lifestyles, sizes, shapes, but they will always have one thing in common; the heart. 