Joyas Voladoras Summary

From hummingbirds nimbly flying over flowers to humming women quietly walking through the park, Brian Doyle’s essay, “Joyas Voladoras,” brings light to the power of choice in relation to human experience and emotion. Doyle displays this power of choice through vivid descriptions of two animals: a hummingbird and a blue whale, two seemingly different organisms. However, instead of focusing on the obvious disparities of the animals, Doyle concentrates on what makes them similar, the heart. Both the hummingbird and blue whale have hearts, but they use their hearts in drastically different ways, one heart being the smallest and another being the largest in the world. Contrary to the beliefs of science and evolution, Doyle believes that humans are not so different from these two creatures, because, “no living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside” (3). Suddenly, the essay transforms from a National Geographic journal to a heartfelt message that connects all of the human race. Doyle dives into how the heart experiences so many emotions and ideas throughout a human life. Knowing that the heart is a delicate jewel, Doyle demonstrates that, “all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore” (3). Doyle understands that many individuals try to defend their hearts and protect them from any harm, but those hearts will eventually be hurt and injured in a

The heart is what keeps the human body running. From the very first time someone presses their head up against their mothers chest or feels their own heart beat, they know that the pulse they feel means something important. It’s the rhythm that lets us keep on living. It’s strange to think that before I read this book, I barely knew anything about this absolutely vital organ in my body. Now, I probably know more history about the human heart than I ever thought I’d know. This book went totally in depth about the history of the human heart, and how modern medicine knows what it knows about this vital organ. It weaves history and information about the heart together in a way that keeps you interested until the last page, which is something I

In this experiment, the external and internal structures of a sheep’s heart was examined and identified by dissection. To determine the functionality of a human heart since they are both mammals.

“Joyas Voladoras” is a poetic essay written by Brian Doyle. This essay is about the heart, big and small. The hummingbirds have the smallest heart while the blue whale has the biggest. Doyle is trying to tell us readers a message. The message he is telling us is that our (mammals, birds, reptiles, etc) hearts are strong and amazing, but fragile. We have to be careful what we do.

In the book “Joyas Voladoras” by published editor Brain Doyle, Doyle begins talking about humming birds. The heart of a humming bird, and its physical aspects. Doyle then elaborates on the title that it translates to flying jewels, which the first explorers named them. Doyle is talking about life, the center of all living things life, the heart and the different aspects of the heart. The memory that can be stored there, the heartbeats, the size and even how a heart can be broken. Doyle presents his ideas differently but causes the reader to connect emotionally, factually, and fairly personally.

In the essay, “Joyas Voladoras,” the author, Brian Doyle, wrote about the emotional heart and the biology of a heart. He starts the book off talking about hummingbirds’ hearts and the amazing things they can do. After talking about hummingbirds, he changes the subject to whales and how big they are and how big their hearts are. After the subject of whales, he talks about how different types of living creatures have different amounts of heart chambers and hearts and how every living thing has liquid moving inside. After talking about the heart chambers and functions, he started talking about the heart as in emotions. Doyle’s son, Liam, was born with three chambers in his heart, so he probably wrote “Joyas Voladoras” to convey that all hearts no matter how many chambers are in it, all work the same.

R E V I E W S H E E T 30 Anatomy of the Heart

In “Joyas Voladoras”, Brian Doyle indicates that the heart is the emotional center of life that controls feeling that cannot be hidden Hiding the emotions created by the heart can set up a dull future. Doyle uses the humming bird’s need for sweets to portray the idea of the necessary emotions of life. When talking about the humming bird’s risks, Doyle writes,”If they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be.” The heart needs love and emotions in order to function properly.

Brian Doyle's Joyas Voladoras first appeared in The American Scholar in 2004 and was later selected for Best American Essays in 2005. Doyle’s intended audience is the general population, though his writing style attracts both the logical reader and the hopeless romantics who seek metaphors pointing to love in any way. The beginning of the essay provides insight to general information about the hummingbird, which holds the smallest, capable, and fragile heart in the world. He then explains the significance of the blue whale’s heart with comparisons, indicating that the blue whale holds a heart the size of a room. He ends his essay by expressing that a human’s heart is always closed due to the fear of it breaking, remaining constantly

He explains that “the biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale” and that the blue whale’s “valves are as big as swinging doors in a saloon,” so big that a “child could walk around in it” (Doyle 82). This is also where Doyle relates the essay to human beings with the analogy of the child followed by the statement that the blue whale’s heart is “waaaaay bigger than your car” (Doyle 82). After connecting the whale to humans, Doyle explains that blue whales “travel in pairs,” meaning that love is a part of their lives (Doyle 82). Although it would be logical that everything would be perfect for a whale and their partner, “their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles” (Doyle 82). By feeling love through the heart, the whale feels pain and agony, supporting and killing the whale at the same

The paradox of the heart is that it allows us to live and feel the most beautiful things, to love and be loved; it also allows us to feel the deepest pains, the ones where it feels like we can no longer breathe and are grasping for air. It’s incredible how one small organ can have such great power, to carry the weight of life and death. Bryan Doyle’s short story, “Joyas Voladoras,” starts off with facts and metaphors of a hummingbird’s heart. The story then goes into a brief description about whales and finally concludes with people. Doyle draws a connection between hummingbirds, whales, and humans, and it’s that they all have a heart. He expresses the significance of the heart and the role it plays in each individual’s life through the use of facts, similes, metaphors, imagery and personification. Doyle even breaks the barriers between reader and writer by switching points of views and incorporating the reader by drawing emotions and evoking thoughts.

Brian Doyle is not only an author, but also a father, whose writing is inspired by his son's heart deformity. He pursues knowledge of this topic and uses it in his book The Wet Engine. In this book, “Joyas Voladoras” tells about the heart and what it portrays in life. In “Joyas Voladoras”, Brian Doyle explores that the heart is a powerhouse and depending on how people live, determines their vitality.

The heart serves an important purpose within the body, pumping blood throughout the circulatory system to supply all parts of the body with vital nutrients and molecules. It pumps oxygen and nutrient rich blood to be exchanged for carbon dioxide, which is then pumped to the lungs and eliminated from the body. The movement of blood throughout the body is due to the heart’s ability to push blood along the circulatory system at a steady, unfaltering rate. This rate, known as heart rate, is regulated and can be altered at a moment’s notice by signaling within the body and heart itself. In vertebrates, the autonomic nervous system controls and regulates heart rate. The autonomic nervous system is divided into two subunits, the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nerve that innervates the heart is the vagus nerve. In this laboratory experiment, the regulation of heart rate was observed by studying a certain breed of turtle, the Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans). Both chemical and electric signaling can influence the components of the nervous

The heart is one of the most important organs in an organism’s body, no matter if they are aquatic, amphibian, or a mammal. This super organ works automatically, able to pump massive amounts of oxygen rich blood through the body by means of electrical impulses and the opening and closing of valves within its many layers. It is what keeps us and every other creature on this earth alive; so it is only natural for one to fear when there might be a problem with one’s heart. A cardiac arrhythmia can happen to anyone, no matter the age, race, or gender, and as such, doctors and scientist have spent years trying to better understand the heart and the way it functions so that they can try to prevent these problems and save millions of lives.

The hearts role is to pump oxygenated blood to every cell in the body by having a continuous beat. Throughout time the heart has created mystery, however current technology has solved most of the mystery, there still remains an enchantment and eagerness to learn more.