Joyas Voladoras Interpretive Essay

715 Words2 Pages

What is Doyle’s message in Joyas Voladoras? Well, there could be many interpretations, but I specifically think that he’s trying to tell us about the heart. It does talk about many different subjects, like hummingbirds and blue whales, but it always comes back to ONE subject: the heart, the physical one and the emotional one.

First of all, he starts with the hummingbirds, maybe just to get us interested. He starts with how the hummingbirds are discovered, but then, he suddenly starts talking about “their hearts hammering faster than we could clearly hear if we pressed our [huge] ears to their [small] chests” (line 12-14, pg 29), and that proves that he always comes back to the heart. But why does he do that? Perhaps if we continue on we’ll see that he starts talking about “torpor” and death because of the heart that fails to provide oxygen. He mentions that “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly... and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast... and live to be two years old” (line 55-60, pg. 31). Is he trying to tell us that we have a choice on how long we live? I mean, we usually spend our heartbeats moderately, but if we wanted to, we could live for years? If you think literally, you’ll find that this is physically impossible, considering the conditions of old age. But, we can live life to the fullest, which we can either live life on the couch, where the time drags by, or we can live life excitedly, like taking risks and conquering even the hardest of things.

The next “chunk” talks about the blue whale. And obviously, you can infer that he will talk about the blue whale’s heart (which is absolutely true). First, it says how ...

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...iquid that moves around us. But what is it? Obviously, the best description for this “liquid” is blood. But what is the “liquid” that churns inside of unicellular bacteria? If you think hard about it and try to imagine it, then you might come up with some kind of “jelly” substance. But maybe that’s wrong. If you start thinking metaphorically, you might discover something that perhaps I cannot even imagine. When I think that way, maybe it means that this “liquid” is not even liquid at all. It is your feelings, wanting to get out, especially when you’re sad or nervous. When I’m nervous, I feel a churning in my stomach and throat, and that wants to make me cry, that terrible feeling I just described. It isn’t liquid, it’s feelings that churn! Maybe if we look in the next section, perhaps we can find more clues to this “liquid” mystery.

Works Cited

Joyas Voladoras

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