
In life there tends to be messages that we don’t always see right away and the same can occur in writing, but sometimes the messages aren’t noticeable right away intentionally so the readers will have to really think about the points the author was trying to get across.  When reading Brian Doyle’s piece “Joyas Volardores” the readers will notice there are many literary devices that Doyle used to try to cover up the real thoughts and messages he was trying to convey. By looking at exaggeration, imagery, and pathos we can see the most important parts of the story that Doyle was trying to bring attention to. These devices are important because it draws the reader’s attention to certain parts of the story, makes the piece easier to understand, and let’s the reader see what the main message the author wanted readers to take away from his work.

 The first device Doyle uses is exaggeration. He describes the hummingbird and whales heart as simply what keeps them alive, but when he describes the heart of humans he states that the heart is just related to the emotions that we have. The author fails to mention anything about how many heartbeats we will have in our lifetime or the size of our hearts like he does when he is talking about the hummingbird and whale. By looking at this, it seems as if Doyle doesn’t believe that animals feel emotions, they are just creatures that are living on Earth.  Doyle writes “So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment”(Doyle 96).  This quote is referring to emotions tha humans feel, things in our lives seem to always be changing whether they are good or bad. We hold onto so many emotions inside of us that it can sometimes be overwhelming, but we can’t let that discourage us and hold onto the past. I feel like Doyle wants the readers to understand that even when life gets tough, we have to keep moving forward. Another quote that stuck out was when Doyle said “ that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will…”(Doyle 96) when people go through traumatic things they feel sad and it can really scar them and leave an impact on their life. Doyle is trying to get his readers to understand that life is going to get hard and you will go through many obstacles and feel a lot of pain, hearts will be broken, but it will get better  with time because not everything is permanent. 

Doyle not only uses exaggeration, but he also uses imagery to describe how big the heart of a blue whale is. He describes the heart as being the size of a massive room that has four chambers and then goes on to say “ A child could walk around it, head high, bending only to step through the valves”(Doyle 95). This is important because it lets the reader really imagine the size of the heart and it makes it easier to understand what the author is describing and to make better sense of it. The use of imagery is very helpful throughout the whole fourth paragraph because Doyle describes the features of the heart so well that the reader can imagine themselves being in the heart and just seeing how big it is. When I was reading, I could picture myself walking around in the heart of this whale, tt seems a little overwhelming because I can see myself in a massive room that seems like it will never end and I’m all by myself. By looking at imagery it makes the message of how powerful and big the heart is so clear and also keeps the  readers interested in the text, Doyle’s descriptions made it easy to paint a vivid painting in the readers minds. If Doyle wouldn’t have used imagery in his writing, then the reader would have lost interest in continuing to read and the text wouldn’t have had as much clarity on the size of the heart. 

The last device that Doyle used in his piece was pathos. The use of pathos helped the reader understand Doyle’s emotional appeal. The short lived life of the hummingbird provokes both sadness and happiness. When Doyle is writing about the hummingbirds life he says “ 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”(Doyle 95). This quote can also be directly aimed towards humans because we have the choice on how we want to live our life. People can choose to either be full of joy and happiness or be miserable all the time, Doyle is trying to relate the hummingbirds’ life on how he believes that humans should live their lives. It seems as if Doyle respects the hummingbird for living such a full live, even though it’s so short. Another quote that stood out was “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”(Doyle 96) what Doyle is trying to get the reader to understand is that we can put up a shield against the pain and fears that we have in life but that won’t last very long because we are meant to experience those things. We will feel pain emotionally and physically but we can’t let that stop us because life gets hard a few times. People will move on from the sadness and pain that life puts them through and when they do they will really see all the joy, love, and happiness that can be found in life.

In conclusion, Doyle’s use of exaggeration, imagery, and pathos helped the reader to understand the physical aspects of the heart to the hummingbird and blue whale, but also the emotional aspect it provides to humans. I think that Doyle’s main idea of writing this piece was to explain how important the heart is, both physically and emotionally. It was easy to come to this conclusion because Doyle describes how big the heart of the hummingbird and blue whale in a physical aspects and then explains the emotional aspects of the human’s heart. Doyle’s use of these devices also helped for the reader to understand how fragile the heart is. The hummingbirds heart was the smallest heart in the world and the blue whales heart was the biggest in the world, but it’s also important to keep in mind that just because humans don’t have the smallest or biggest hearts, they go through a lot of emotional obstacles rather than physical ones. Doyle seems to  admire the hummingbirds life because they live such full lives. It’s almost as if he’s trying to tell his readers to live more like hummingbirds. 