
The way someone loves and lives their live is closely correlated with their past experiences and how they let those specific affect their life. We fear the unknown and sometimes dread being exposed to the world that has caused us pain. In Brian Doyle’s “Joyas Volardores”, uses a hummingbird and a blue whale, giving two different scenarios of the creatures’ hearts, he then ties the two together, to compare all other living beings. He ties all of the ironies of the heart to mankind.  With the use of metaphors Doyle is able to use the heart to tie all lives together, while still being to illustrate the vulnerabilities and wounds we all face from live experiences. 

Doyle starts the essay telling the reader to just imagine for a moment that we were hummingbirds. Imagine that we have a heart that is the size of a pencil eraser that beats ten times per second. Hummingbirds have fast pace heart beats that leave them unable to rest. They can “fly backwards” “fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest”, and they have “immense ferocious metabolism”. He explains the dynamic of a hummingbird’s heart, their fibers are leaner, and the arteries are stiffer just so they can regulate more oxygen. The irony of the fast pace life is through all “of their ambition [their] life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature” (95).  They are not able to keep up with their heart, which causes them to burn out. 

People have the tendency to always be on the move never wanting to slow down. When they are not moving in a fast pace way they feel like there is something that can or needs to be done. Doyle switches focus of hummingbirds to us, humans, by using “you”, which makes the readers feel as if he is personally talking to them. He states that we can live “like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you spend the fast, like a hummingbird. And live to be two years old” (95). Up to this point of the passage he is explaining that life is as precious as you make it. We can live the non-stop lifestyle, always in the fast lane, not really having time to relax. On the other hand you can have a laid back life where you take life day by day. Neither is better than the other, he is just giving the audience options on the way to live. 

Doyle goes on to talk in the next portion, about the biggest heart in world, which belongs to blue whales. A whale’s heart is seven tons, has four chambers, and is big enough for a child to walk through without having to bend. Giving the description that the whale’s heart is big enough for a child to walk through, makes his portrayal relatable to people.  Doyle giving the detailed description of a seven ton whale heart compared to the pencil eraser sized hummingbird’s heart, illustrates the difference of their heart, they live two different life styles, but both animals depend on their heart. There is a lot of information on hummingbirds. The same is not for whales, there is little known about “mating habits, travel patterns, diet, social life, language, social structure, diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs, and arts of the blue whale” (95). It is known that there are about ten thousand whales in each ocean and “animals with the largest hearts in the world generally in pairs (95). Which means they have a strong connection with the whale that they choose to be their partner. Although they have another whale to get through life, it is said that “their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles” (96). Therefore, they have love in their hearts but they are still experiencing pain and they still suffer.   

Doyle is able to relate two very different organisms together, whales and hummingbirds, and also reptiles, fish and even worms. Despite the immense differences in structure, habits, and habitats, the underlying similarity between all forms of live is the heart. 

The last paragraph of the essay, Doyle is bringing the readers back to reality, he is no longer talking about animals’ hearts, he switches the focus to humans. He states “So much held in a heart in a lifetime, we need to take pride in our lives, don’t take it for granted. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment”. Meaning that every second we live is important.  He doesn’t use any metaphors in this line, to set the tone of seriousness. He refers to our heart as a house, we build walls to protect ourselves from being “bruised and scarred”. “We open windows” but to we ultimately “live alone in the house of the heart” because vulnerability makes us feel weak. No matter how hard we try to defend ourselves from the damage of life’s hardships, there is always something that we connect with emotionally that tears down those walls. 

But although we feel as if no one could ever understand the emptiness that we feel in our hearts, Doyle uses “we” often to reiterate to readers that this is something that everyone is going through.  

Through the use of metaphors the author is able to unify many lives, though they are different, they have one thing in common, the heart. The heart is a fragile organ, and it is impossible to breeze through life without it get scarred. Doyle is able to equalize all organism through the heart, and like all the heart that gives us life is the same organ that hinders us from being vulnerable. 