Analysis Of Joyas Voladoras

In “Joyas Voladoras” by Brian Doyle, the reader is introduced to the idea that all animals are similar because we all have hearts that serve the same purpose: to pump blood to the rest of the body to stay alive, and to hold our emotions like anger, happiness, love, or sadness. The essay explores the small, fast-paced hearts of hummingbirds, then contrasts them with the huge, slow-beating heart of a whale, but still showing how they have the same purpose. Then the author writes about the scientific part of the heart, and ends by telling how the heart holds our emotions and showing how fragile it can be. By examining the way the essay is linked together, the reader learns of the main idea is that all hearts have the same function, no matter how different their hosts look.

Doyle uses a compare and contrast showing how different animals use their heartbeats in different ways, but all hearts share the purpose of pumping blood so that the body can survive.

If you use them fast you will die fast, and if you use them slowly you will die slowly. A quote from that section reads “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.” (pg.31). An analysis of this quote reveals that there are many different types of hearts in this world, but they all are the same in the way that they all function the same, keeping us alive and holding our

emotions.
The other function of the heart besides the one everyone agrees upon, the scientific fact that red liquid comes out of a fist-sized ball in our body and we need that red liquid to live, is that the heart is the symbolic place where all our feelings happen. Love, sadness, happiness, and anger are all things people say “they feel in their heart”. The later part of the essay is dedicated to this function of the heart, and it shows how we will try to protect our heart our whole lives, only to be broken down in one moment. Doyle writes “You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in a thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen when he is making pancakes for his children.” (line 112-123) This quote shows that emotions are felt in the heart. Also, more importantly it ties to the theme that all hearts have the same purpose. Although not all animals may be able to feel emotions for the same reasons as us, I believe that they still feel them, probably in their heart.
In “Joyas Voladoras”, the author Brian Doyle emphasizes the message that all hearts are in us to do the same to things: to keep us alive and to hold our feelings. The author uses scientific and more metaphorical parts of the essay to show this main idea. After reading this essay, I was left thinking about my heart, and if it has ever been broken down in one moment like Doyle wrote about in this essay.