The heart has always been an important symbol throughout society. It can be used anywhere from a symbol for sorrow to a symbol for love, it all depends on the eye of the beholder. It’s funny how the overall symbol of the heart is a pretty shape, but the actual heart that keeps every person alive isn’t quite that flattering. Was that society looking for a prettier symbol for love or was there more to it, was it easier to draw or is there a deeper meaning behind it? Some might say yes, while others would say no, but there’s one thing for certain; the heart is arguably the most important symbol in history. Not for its historical context or for changing the world, but because of human nature and one’s constant desire to be loved. Ever since the beginning of time people have realized how important and fragile the heart is. “Heartbroken” was never intended to mean an actual break of the heart, but for the intense pain that comes with love. Love wouldn’t be worth all the heartache if it wasn’t so special. In “Joyas Volardores” Brian Doyle uses imagery of comparative hearts to describe his lifestyle growing up in two “homes.”

Doyle’s first use of imagery is one of the smallest hearts in the world, a hummingbird. “A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser” (94). This is Doyle’s first image of how fragile a heart can be. Imagine the one thing that is solely responsible for keeping you alive being smaller than your fingernail. It’s no coincidence that Doyle compared it to a pencil eraser either. Think about how many pencils kids go through in even one week of school today. The hardest thing ever to keep up with during high school was definitely that nice mechanical pencil every kid made their mom go to Walmart and buy. Doyle specifically chose this because of its place in society today. Consider how much more people would care about keeping up with a pencil throughout the day if their heart was on the end instead of just an eraser. Doyle used this analogy to make the reader think about how precious life actually is. 

Next Doyle mentions how powerful the heart is, even in its smallest form. “They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest” (95). Five hundred miles is more than almost any car can get on one tank of gas, so overall the hummingbird has better gas mileage than any hybrid out there. If the smallest heart in the world can accomplish such a thing, then consider all the power stored within a human heart. Doyle wants the reader to take inspiration from the hardest working heart out there. This is his way of communicating about all the magnificent things the heart can do if its backed into a corner. Like women having the power from out of nowhere to move a car that is putting a baby in harm’s way. Now of course science will try to have an explanation for the phenomenon too, but one can’t completely rule out the fact that it’s just the raw power of the heart.

 Finally, Doyle presents another fact your everyday person would most likely not know. “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heart beats to spend a lifetime” (95). Doyle really tries to hit the reader on a personal level with this one. He goes on to compare the fast heart of the hummingbird, who lives about two years, and the slow stagnate heart or the tortoise, who lives about two hundred years. This puts the reader in a weird predicament. It seems like the more life is worth living the faster one’s heart beats. Think about it, during a big sports moment the heart is going crazy. A kids first kiss is one of the most nervous, for most people, experiences of their entire lives. According to Doyle’s statement the faster your heart beats the faster you’re going to die, but does that mean he’s telling us not to live life, definitely not. Someone’s heart going through all kinds of emotional roller coasters is what makes humans unique and what makes life itself unique.

Since Doyle examined the smallest heart in the world it only makes sense that he would look at the biggest heart in the world next, the blue whale. “It weighs more than seven tons. It’s as big as a room” (95). Hearts come in many different shapes and sizes but deep down they all have the same needs and wants. Even the biggest heart in the world is surprisingly similar to the human heart. Blue whales have the urge to find a companion to live life with and they always travel in pairs. This relates to the human concept of marriage. It’s crazy to think about just because the world today is so wrapped up in it, but humans just made marriage up. Marriage feels like a natural part of life nowadays but at some point in history it had to not exist. Doyle uses the image of the heart in animals to show the reader that.

Now to wrap it all up Doyle tries to make the reader think on a much deeper level than most people are comfortable with. “…for next to nothing is known of the mating habits, travel patterns, diet, social life, language, social structure, diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs and arts of the blue whale” (95).  When someone thinks of a blue whale they’re not going to think about whale’s spirituality and wars. Doyle goes out of his way to consider the problems whales face daily are human problems. No one is going to expect when whales dive into the deepest parts of the ocean they are hashing it out between themselves. It sounds silly, but then why do humans see it as normal to have wars amongst ourselves. Doyle uses the whales example to take a deeper dive into the human heart, to really reflect on the purposes of life and how human nature to fight and disagree is just stupid if you put it into any other context. Sometimes society should just take a backseat and observe what is actually about to happen and how out of context it is. If we as humans just did that maybe it would be a better and happier world we live in today.

When Brian Doyle was growing up in Canada his family had two homes, one in the city during the school year, and a log cabin on a river during the summer. In this paper he compares his school year heart, the fast beating always processing hummingbird, to his summer heart, the deeper diving blue whale. While kids are in school, society trains them to think a certain way and do certain things. The hummingbird represents the ongoing never relaxing heart that schools today promote with the whole popularity ordeal. The whale however represents Doyle’s summer life where he could go out of town into nature and just reflect on life. If today’s world would just slow down and look around, we’d actually see what we are missing. Everyone wants that high paying job with that new car and nice house, but before they realize it they have those things and still are nowhere near happy. This is because the heart desires the little things in life and in “Joyas Volardores” Doyle showed the reader that fact.
