The Joyas Voladores is a very compelling writing about the correlation of hearts and their need for compassion and warmth. This writing has a very clever way of incorporating a multitude of different thoughts and ideas about the heart, both physically and emotionally. The author, Brian Doyle, specifically uses the hummingbird as an example of how a particular species that can travel five hundred miles non-stop and who’s heart beats ten times per second must be surrounded by sweet flowers or they will perish.  Although the example used is a hummingbird, the author is trying to deliver a message that is true for all different types of species, including humans.  If the heart is subjected to different types of pain and suffering, it will be unable to complete its duties and will die as a result. 

There are many instances where I believe the author used very descriptive words that helped the audience understand the authors point of view. In the beginning of the work, Doyle says, “…their hearts hammering faster than we could clearly hear if we pressed our elephantine ears to their infinitesimal chests.” The complex words that he used to describe human ears and hummingbird’s small chests really drew my attention toward the key points that he was trying to make in that sentence. Through the combination of both complex words and articulate detail that are rarely used in everyday conversation, readers are forced to pay attention to the more important parts of these sentences. For example, if Doyle would have used simple words like, large or small, his audience would have read over that sentence without fully grasping the magnitude of the animals features. 

The authors use of certain words that seemed odd given the syntactical structure of the sentence. For example, “Hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have incredible enormous immense ferocious metabolisms.” This sentence’s use of the word “enormous” does not seem like the appropriate term to describe the metabolism of a hummingbird. Another aspect of Doyle’s writing is his tendency to use words that can have quite a few meanings. An example of this can be found on the second page where the author says, “…if they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be.” This quotation is very intriguing because for some readers they may be confused as to which kind of “sweet” that the author is talking about. Some readers may take the word sweet as another member of the hummingbird family providing protection to an individual bird, while others may take is as sweet nectar from one of the thousands of flowers that hummingbirds encounter every day. 

Joyas Volardores is a short reading where the author pays attention to the words that he is using to describe certain objects that he deems as important. As the audience reads this work, they will probably find it easy to locate the key points because of the choice words that Doyle uses. An example of this is on the second page when Doyle says, “To drive those metabolisms they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate.” The decision to use image of a race-car engine to describe the rate at which the hummingbirds heart beats helps the audience gain a feel and understanding of how rapid the heartbeat truly is. The unique use of imagery enables the readers to better grasp all the points that he is attempting to make in Joyas Volardores.

From early on in the text, it is evident that the author paid a lot of attention to the words that used and where he placed those words throughout any particular sentence. The author does a nice job of mixing both simple and complex syntax throughout the work to keep the audiences attention. His use of his active voice to engage the readers as if he is talking to them in a face to face conversation was a brilliant way to peak the interest of his audience. This type of writing is very important when he incorporates his examples of the hummingbird and its heart because of they are two very different things being tied together by a singular message. As Doyle was writing this piece, his intention was not to give the reader an in depth analysis of the hummingbird’s heart, but actually use it to better explain the complexities of humans and life as a whole. 

As one reads this piece, they will soon realize that this entire work was either Doyle narrating or him describing different animal’s characteristics to tie in to his message about hearts. His use of animals that are not found all across the world would have excluded certain audiences, but he thoroughly explained each species to the point where it was not required to have previous knowledge of them. An example of his explanation of one of the species can be found on the top of the second page where he describes the characteristics of the hummingbird, “Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backwards. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest.”  The explanation of this species was imperative in broadening the audience for more than just people from the Americas. Throughout this work, the author used his writing style and syntactic patterns to relay his message in a variety of ways. Doyle’s changing of syntactic structure was important in describing certain aspects of life were key in delivering his purpose for writing the text. His decision to use other creatures to indirectly describe the heart’s need for constant nurturing was the perfect way to keep the reader’s attention. 

In conclusion, Joyas Voladores was Brian Doyle’s way of describing his understanding of hearts and how fragile they are. Throughout this piece, Doyle used metaphors and differing syntactic structures to engage his audience and keep their interest. The author ties everything back to the theme of animals and their hearts because most people understand subjects when given examples. Even though this is an indirect approach, the author continued to use the hummingbird to make his point which proved to be effective. Doyle wanted to convey a message about the heart that his true of all species, especially humans. The author’s message to the audience is no matter how you decide to live your life, your heart will either be effected positively or negatively. He talks about how subjecting your heart to pain or overuse can have negative effects on you as a whole. Overall, his primary example of the hummingbird depicts his underlying message of the heart being fragile no matter the circumstances. 