How does one speak few words but mean thousands? Metaphor is the answer, and a brilliant example of this is provided in Brian Doyle’s “Joyas Voladores”.  The construction of this passage is interesting. It starts out with metaphors that lay the base for the author’s point, and does not express the main idea until the concluding paragraph.  The point that Brain Doyle is trying to express is quite simple: we can build up as many walls around our hearts as we want, to prevent people from hurting us, but to let someone in is to allow them to love you or to hurt you; so inevitably the walls will come down. This, in of itself, is explained via metaphor. The entire text may be viewed as a metaphor, but the most powerful, the most complex, and the most in depth metaphors are found in the first five paragraphs. In the first three paragraphs Brain Doyle speaks of a hummingbird. In the final two, he speaks of a whale. Both of these beings are spoken about metaphorically. Brian Doyle uses multiple metaphors throughout this passage to lead up to his final idea and establish his views on life along the way.

First he speaks of the hummingbird, of its heart, its way of life. This analysis of a hummingbird is all a metaphor, a very deep and complex metaphor. A metaphor for life, and different ways in which one may choose to live. This metaphor moves at a very quick pace; Doyle leaves the reader little time to contemplate each idea. First he begins by speaking of how incredible the hummingbird’s heart truly is, the reader learns of its minute size, yet its mammoth capabilities. He speaks of how incredible the heart of a hummingbird is, “A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second…[yet] is the size of a pencil eraser” (Doyle 1-2). Next Doyle talks about the different ways that a hummingbird can use its capable abilities, “dive at sixty miles an hour… [or] fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest” (Doyle 10-12). What this metaphor establishes is that people can choose to live their lives in different ways. Here, he shows two lifestyle extremities. This aids his main idea in the sense that, no matter how one chooses to live their life, there is a universal truth about the walls people build around themselves. 

Just after discussing their peerless abilities, Doyle shifts back to reality, now speaking of how truly frail a hummingbird is, “when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights… if they are not soon warmed… their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be” (Doyle 12-16).  Yet another metaphor of life in of itself, representing the highs and lows that one can encounter in an instant. Doyle shows the reader how quickly a hummingbird’s live can change from fantastic to empty to express the metaphor between love and the lack of it. People fall in and out of love often and the difference in feeling can be as sharp as the difference between a fulfilling life and a cold, lonely near death experience. Or, in even more morbid cases, actual death. This metaphor is aided by antonymous adjectives such as “warmer” and “cold” to highlight the stark contrast between these two moments of life. This is as close as the Doyle comes to expressing the main idea without actually doing so. He essentially talks about one half of the main idea, the fact that in life we will all experience love and hurt.

These ideas are drawn together in the third paragraph, “The price of their ambition is a life closer to death” (Doyle 31-32). With this quote Doyle exhibits the other side of living with such pace, the consequence results in a quicker life. This is just one example of a way one can live their life, he then poses another way one can live “like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old” (Doyle 35-36). A complete contrast from the hummingbird’s mere two years. This makes it more obvious that the metaphor is about life and how one may choose to live their lives. You can live like a hummingbird, fast, vast, all over the place, full of adventure; or you can live like a tortoise, like many who take their lives slowly without rapid change. Whether you are the hummingbird or you are the tortoise, you are going to love and you are going to get hurt. Doyle explains that it does not matter which lifestyle you live, this truth is going to remain.

This series of metaphors creates unity, or generalization. The author may have only written three paragraphs, but by using metaphors he is speaking volumes. The purpose of this section is to generalize the ways humans live their lives, because in order to include all readers he needs to include all ways in which a reader can live. He describes a hummingbird in depth, and by using metaphors he communicates many ways one can live a life. In the middle of the second paragraph, Doyle lists 16 different types of hummingbirds. He shows that there are many different types of hummingbirds, metaphorically translating to there being many different ways to live a fast life style. Then, of course, in contrast, he uses the tortoise to relate to those who may live life at a slower pace. Unity is achieved; in simplistic form we all live no matter how quickly, or slowly.

The second major metaphor comes from the fourth paragraph, about the blue whale. This metaphor is centered around the heart of the gigantic creature. Much of the first part of this paragraph is spent talking about this massive organ, as well as the whale itself. After the description of the whale, Doyle uses an important metaphor: “There are perhaps ten thousand blue whales living in the world… and of the largest animal who ever lived we know nearly nothing” (Doyle 48-50). This metaphor is used to describe our knowledge of love, the most predominant emotion in human life, that we know so little about. Using size Doyle puts emphasis on the emotion itself, and this is why he talks about the size of the whale and its heart in the previous sentences. In the following sentence Doyle again uses metaphor to speak of emotion, “their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles” (Doyle 51-52). This metaphor speaks of deep emotion, before this point Doyle explains that blue whales spend their lives living with another pair, they spend their lives in love in a sense. In the metaphor he speaks of moaning cries that can be heard for miles and miles, this provides a sort of size for the feeling of love itself. 

Another reason Doyle uses blue whales because they are so secluded. Blue whales are a great example of an entity that puts up walls. As Doyle mentioned, we know little about blue whales although they are gigantic and loud. They are probably wonderful creatures, but they often prefer to not show themselves or go near others. To go along with the metaphor, this is because they do not wish to get hurt, or at least because they do not wish to have others view their pain. Yet again, Doyle uses an entity other than humans to describe conflicts humans have. He uses blue whales partly because they are enigmatic and partly because the reason they are an enigma is because they refrain from interaction. Their seclusion is their wall. This metaphor effectively completes Doyle’s main idea: we try to build up walls, but no matter who we are, the walls are going to come down and we are going to love and hurt.

Metaphor does a lot in this series of paragraphs, mainly it gives the point about love depth behind the words. Using metaphor Doyle is able to create a connection between the livelihood of this significant animal, and the deep feeling of love in human life. Using metaphor also gives his words weight, providing a greater sense of meaning in these short sentences. Doyle is able to describe love in a way that creates a sense of meaning with the reader, and that is why it is so powerful. Metaphor in this sense, forces the reader to think, to make a connection. This connection makes the reading stick; it makes the reading memorable. Forming the connection between a perspective and one’s perspective is very powerful, but impossible if the author is simply providing just a point of view or their point of view. Metaphor is also used to generalize as we see in the fifth paragraph. Doyle goes to describe the hearts of many different types of organisms, signifying the different ways one can love. Everyone has a heart, therefore everyone loves, no matter how different or similar they are. This allows Doyle to include the perspective of every reader, and include the way each individual way in which one loves. His argument apply to all, which is very important. He ends the paragraph with this quote, “We all churn on the inside” (Doyle 59). This metaphor gives the reader a sense of inclusion: we all live and we all love.

Metaphor is used so effectively in this text, to develop the argument. The most important way is to show that Doyle’s main idea, his argument applies to all. The hummingbird metaphor is used to show that we all live, no matter how quickly or slowly we spend our heartbeats, we all live. Every lifestyle can be represented somewhere in this metaphor, whether it is one as quick as that of a hummingbird or as slow as that of a tortoise, or anywhere in between. All readers are included. The blue whale metaphor is used to show that we all love. No matter how different this love is, it is all represented. The unity, the ability to apply to every reader could not be achieved without the use of metaphor. This is because there are countless ways to interpret each metaphor, countless ways that the metaphor may be applied to life and love. He shows that his argument really does apply to all readers with the use of metaphor. To restate Doyle’s main idea: We can build up as many walls to prevent people from hurting us, but to let someone in is to allow them to love or to hurt you, so inevitably the walls will come down. With this in mind, he has shown that will all live, that we all love. The idea is that we shouldn’t be afraid to live or to love, to feel deeply. The walls will come down, so why build them up? 
