
Throughout elementary school, Valentine’s Day was one of the greatest holidays a kid could celebrate. Regardless of whether or not the real reason for celebration was understood, nobody asked questions because getting to decorate a shoe box with hearts so all of your classmates could stuff in loads of candy was enough reasoning anyone needed. Folding red, pink and white pieces of paper in half, hot dog style of course, and carefully drawing the outline of a heart, and gliding scissors over the outline. At such a young age hearts are thought of as only pertaining to Valentine’s Day, not as a muscle that allows us to live by involuntarily pumping blood, or as something that could endure so much pain yet so much happiness. In “Joyas Voladores,” Brian Doyle uses repetition of the word “heart” to portray the many functions of hearts, allowing us to further understand factors that create individuality. 

Doyle lists numerous species of hummingbirds, varying in tail length, bill length, size, shape, and feather colors:

Bearded helmet-crests and booted racket-tails, violet- tailed sylphs and violet- capped woodnymphs, crimson topazes and purple crowned fairies, red- tailed comets and amethyst woodstars, rainbow- bearded thornbills and glittering bellied emeralds, velvet- purple coronets and golden bellied starfrontlets, fiery- tailed awlbills and Andean hillstars, spatuletails and pufflegs… (95)

 

These adjectives serve as an additional tool used to separate the delicate creatures into more specific categories beyond the general category of a hummingbird, or even more broad, of birds. Many adjectives contain multiple interpretations, such as the seven deadly sins. The use of violet is often used to represent pride, although historically violet has often been used as a symbol of royalty. Emerald goes along with envy, but in today’s society it can be representative of what everyone strives for in life: money. However, the color of green is also prevalent in nature and is viewed as a fresh start, just as the leaves that grow every spring are green. Gold connects with the seven deadly sin of greed, as well as success and wealth. Olympic athletes who are the best in their event win a gold medal as a symbol of their success. The gold standard was previously a standard unit used by countries to compare wealth. Crimson is a deep red color that symbolizes the sin anger, but also symbolizes passion and love which can be seen today through red roses on Valentine’s Day. Fiery fits along with the many meanings of adjectives Doyle used. Fire in prehistoric times is viewed as nurturing, giving our ancestors warmth and light. Alternatively, it can be seen as destructive and permanent, such as houses that have been burnt to the ground. Doyle could’ve given just a couple examples of hummingbirds, but instead he purposely describes sixteen hummingbirds. As you look closely, the color of their feathers allow the hummingbirds to have a sense of individuality, but on a large spectrum, all hummingbirds have the same anatomy - every single bird has a heart with four chambers. Just like the color of feathers, each heart undergoes events that craft individuals.

Throughout the course of the passage, Doyle creates a parallelism between animals and human through the repetition of the word “heart” to connect emotional and physical pain the heart endures. Doyle writes, “animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles” (96) describing the heart ache that occurs in life. The word “yearning” was purposely chosen over other word such as “want,” it is much more intense of a desire for something. The strategic combination of “piercing” and “yearning” relates to the function of the heart that is the emotional side. Especially by using the word “pair,” searching for someone so desirable that you’re able to put the emotional stability of your heart into their hands, and pray that they will never hurt you.

Doyle uses words like “ferocious,” “gulp,” and “stripped” to describe the strain hummingbirds experience as well as the phrases, “their hearts sludging nearly to a halt” (95), “their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia” (95), and “they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate” (95). The word choices are peculiar considering the context they are used describes hummingbirds, such small and fragile animals. The repetition of “heart” while describing hummingbirds explores the physical strain hearts endure during a lifetime. Humans hearts don’t undergo the same physical strain as hummingbirds, however physical activity rips muscle fibers allowing them to grow stronger. The physical aspect of human hearts also pertains to health, such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Any of these diseases affect the physical strength of your heart, allowing you to participate in specific activities as well as not allowing you to do activities. The heart health or health in general connects with the emotional function of hearts. For example, if you had a loved who passed away from a disease, their heart became physically weak, and their death would take an emotional toll on your heart. 

Every heart in any organism experiences different physical and emotional events, which all take a toll on your heart. But with each event your heart gains knowledge and experience for the next event. However many heartbreaks or deaths you encounter in your life, your heart keeps going. Blood continually pumps through your veins, the involuntary muscle is what keeps you going and eventually the physical and emotional pain fade away.  The human heart is extraordinary, but being so young and holding a cut out paper heart, you would never guess what all it could endure in a lifetime. Cutting out paper hearts was just another activity that occurred on Valentine’s Day.
