In “Joyas Volardores” by Brian Doyle, he speaks about the heart in several different ways in order to lead to one main idea he is trying to get across. He first informs us of many facts about the physical aspects of the heart and how it functions to keep different animals and humans alive. These details seem to only serve as factual information in the beginning, but when they are later tied to the comparisons and symbolic images of the heart, it can be interpreted that the author is trying to convey an important message to us. Doyle is ultimately trying to tell us that we are meant to go through all of the good and the bad things in life and cherish every moment in order to live our lives to the fullest. 

In the first instance of the heart being mentioned in the text Doyle says, “A hummingbird’s heart beats 10 times a minute” (Doyle 94). In this instance, he is describing the heart simply on a physical level. Following this quote, he informs us of various additional facts such as its size and how it functions in the hummingbird’s body. It seems as though he is simply informing us of basic facts with no deeper meaning to them until he talks about how fast the hummingbird’s metabolism is due to their fast heart rate. Their fast metabolism makes resting and lacking food severely difficult for them and can lead to death. Doyle explains that the hummingbirds “retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal rate, their hearts slowing nearly to a halt, barely beating” (Doyle 95).  He emphasizes this fact even further in order to make us feel a connection to the hummingbird. The dramatic way that the bird’s death is described allows us to feel empathy and connect it to the life of a human. The fact that Doyle goes so in depth about the hummingbird’s fast heart rate leading to its death, allows us to conclude that he is trying to convey a deeper message. He wants to explain that speeding through life too fast and never stopping to enjoy a moment can cause your life to fly by before you can really get a chance to enjoy it. 

In the next instance that the heart is mentioned he talks about the heart of a whale, which is an extremely larger than the heart of a hummingbird, and also lives much longer. He begins describing the heart of the whale in the same way he did previously with the hummingbird. It is another instance when he is thinking of the heart in the way it physically works and functions in the animal. However, the facts begin to take on a deeper meaning when he talks about the incredibly large size of the whale’s heart. In this instance he says, “we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs” (Doyle 96). In this line he is using a known fact about animal hearts to relate to human life. The idea of a “big” heart can be taken literally and figuratively. In animals we only describe a heart as being big in the sense that it is physically large, but in humans the description of a big heart usually means that the person is very caring. Therefore, it can be interpreted that Doyle is trying to say we should live our lives more like the whale that the hummingbird because humans with a “bigger heart”, in the sense of being more caring, will be accompanied by others throughout their lives and will live longer and happier ones because of it. 

The final instance that he mentions the heart, he uses a human heart instead of an animal. In this instance he gets deeper into the emotional aspect of the heart. He says, “We open up windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart” (Doyle 96). The author is now using the heart as a symbol of the place that holds all of the emotions we experience as humans. In this context the heart is not just a physical thing that pumps blood to keep us alive, but is also a chamber that holds all of our feelings, desires and pain. I interpreted this idea from the text because he compares the heart to a house where all of our emotions live and the windows of the house open and close to let people into our lives or to prevent them from entering when we have experienced heartbreak.  Through this comparison, Doyle is trying to say that when we let people into these windows of our heart we increase the risk of getting hurt and when each of these people leave, we are alone again. This is the reason that he believes we are scared to open up to people and to live our lives as fully as we deserve to. He wants us to understand that in life, you can build all the walls that you want to try to protect yourself but it is inevitable that you will end up disappointed or heartbroken at some point during your lifetime.  

In conclusion, Doyle talks about the heart in various different contexts such as how it keeps us alive and how it allows us to feel certain emotions. The use of animal hearts in the beginning of the piece compared to the use of human hearts in the end shows us the comparison of how humans feel emotions differently than anyone or anything else. He also describes the facts in a way that can relate to how we, as humans, should live our lives to the fullest. The hummingbird’s incredibly fast heart rate and risk of death provides us with the lesson that moving through life too fast without enjoying the little moments is a mistake that we will regret. The idea that whales have such a tremendously large heart, which has been linked to always traveling in pairs, aims to teach us that it is important to be caring and to be accompanied by others throughout our journey. Finally, the use of a house as a symbol of the human heart shows us how experiencing heart break is a part of life that we all have to go through. Doyle wants us to understand that living your life to the fullest includes experiencing both the bad and the good things in life. We shouldn’t go through life too fast, too slow or too cautious because living life to the fullest will all be worth it in the end.
