Life comes in all shapes and sizes, some creatures fly, while others swim. “Joyas Volardores” is a poem written by Brian Doyle comparing a hummingbird and a blue whale. These two animals may seem like polar opposites, but Doyle brings them together to convey a common theme. By looking at diction, pathos, and personification, the reader can see that the comparison of these two animals is used to express life and the human heart. This is important to the passage as it brings out emotion from the reader.

Throughout the text Doyle is very particular with his diction in order to emphasize important aspects of the essay. In the third and fourth line of this piece Doyle explains the name of the essay: “a hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbirds heart is a lot of the hummingbird. Joyas Volardores, flying jewels, the first white explorers in America called them.” (94) The way Doyle uses the words “Joyas Volardores is important to the text as it deems these small creatures as elegant. Calling the creatures jewels, is a reference to the beautiful aspects of life. Doyle also mentions that the heart is so small, yet it takes up so much of the hummingbird’s body. Although the heart is so small, it is essential to life and keeps the bird going, just as in life it is important to appreciate the little things. Later in poem as Doyle begins speaking about blue whales, which are known to have the largest hearts in the world. These creatures are ginormous, even as infants “when this creature is born it weighs four tons. Its waaaaaay bigger than your car. It drinks hundreds of gallons of milk from its mama everyday…” (Doyle 95) Doyle’s diction in this quote is important, it allows the reader to see that even this huge mammal bigger than most people can imagine, still can’t survive on their own. They need their mothers, just as humans do when they are born. Both the hummingbird and Blue Whale represent key traits of life.

Doyle’s use of pathos in this poem evokes emotion from the reader and allows the reader to see life lessons. Doyle notes that hummingbirds are extremely active and rarely need to take a break “but when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging nearly to nearly to a halt…” (Doyle 95) These once ‘flying jewels’ begin to show their weaker side. This is relevant as it shows the reader that all animals have down times, whether that’s having a bad day for a human, or a hummingbird not being able to find food. All humans go through rough patches, Doyle gives an example of this when he writes: 

“You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a womans second glance… the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest t0 die…”(Doyle 96)

all of these negative scenarios cause the reader a feeling of despair. Doyle specifically writes the words “I have something to tell you” (96) in italics because he knows they have a strong meaning and provoke an unwanted feeling in the pit of ones’ stomach that comes with the nerve-raking though of what is coming next. The use of pathos is used in this poem to bring up emotion from different aspects of the poem, all to connect the common theme of hard times and emotions are an aspect of life that are not specific to humans.

The use personification is a valuable literary device that Doyle uses. It allows the reader to see an abstract quality within the various scenarios brought up. As Doyle speaks about the hummingbirds he mentions there metabolisms “hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have an incredibly enormous immense ferocious metabolisms”(Doyle 95) The words incredibly, enormous, immense and  ferocious are used to describe such a small and fragile animal. Doyle makes these birds seem even more tougher when he goes on “To drive those metabolism they have a race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut. They have more mitochondria in their heat muscles – anything to gulp more oxygen” (Doyle 95). When someone thinks about a race car they think large, tough and fast. While humming birds are fast, they certainly are not tough and large in a physical sense. However, they are tough, fierce and immense in their ability to withstand all of their disadvantages. These birds represent more than just small creatures, but the ability to fight through the tough times. All creatures have time when they don’t think they can go on, but if a small fragile hummingbird can, anyone can. Going through rough times allows for enjoyment of good times. 

This poem is not just comparing a blue whale to a hummingbird, its meaning goes deeper. This poem is about understanding the heart is complex and although things can get tough, the smallest and largest animals suffer just as humans. The emotions Doyle evokes through his writing is to embrace the common feeling of despair that and prove it is not only a human feeling but one of life. If no one ever had something to complain about then there would be no appreciation for the good side of things.