Joyas Volardores Brian Doyle Analysis

Life should be lived to its fullest potential. There are so many joyful experiences in life as well as many sad ones. In Brian Doyle’s Joyas Volardores, Doyle explains that humans instinctively attempt to block themselves from pain. But, he says that this is not how we should live. Instead, Doyle suggests that humans need to open their heart and experience the pain and sorrow, in order to fully experience all the love and joy that life has to offer. Doyle uses the hummingbird as an example in showing that love correlates with pain. The hummingbird dies a painful, early death due to living such a fast-paced, fulfilling life. Doyle explains the hummingbird’s life as a metaphor for the more love you receive, the more pain you will receive

He informs us that, “the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles”(96). By including the fact that whales have the “largest hearts in the world”, Doyle is correlating the capacity to feel love with the size of the heart. This could imply that whales live with an open heart, because the bigger something is, the harder it is to protect it. Whales travel in pairs, which suggests that love is an essential part of their lives. But like Doyle showed earlier, opening your heart to love, brings great pain. The whales “penetrating moans” and “piercing cries” show that they feel a lot of pain. The words “penetrating” and “piercing” are used to make the reader comprehend how deep their pain is. The cries of pain are so enormous that they can be heard for “miles and miles”. While the whale’s large heart allows it to feel love, it also causes the whale to live in perpetual

He explains how it is human nature to close off our hearts to others, but we might as well open up our hearts because they will all be broken eventually. He talks about this human instinct when he says, “We are utterly open with no one in the end- not mother or father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart”(Doyle, 96). All of these people listed are those we are thought to be closest and most open to. By listing these people, Doyle is showing that humans are never truly open with anyone. The heart is compared to a house, that has windows and is solely occupied by only your self. The “windows” are the small parts of your true feelings that you let other people see. The only person that can see the entire house of your heart, is you. But Doyle suggests, “Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so utterly naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart”(Doyle, 96). By using the word “must”, he implies that closing off our hearts is human instinct. “Naked” has a negative connotation here that helps the reader understand how hard it can be to open up. A naked human body is exposed, vulnerable, and embarrassing. A naked heart, is being open with all of your feelings, which can make someone feel vulnerable and embarrassed. “Harrowed” also has a connotation of being a more permanent distress. This helps