Child Neglect and Color Imagery
Child abuse and neglect is a detrimental issue in our world that can negatively impact on our future. “The Farmer’s Children,” by Elizabeth Bishop is a short story that portrays cruelty and negligence toward children. In, “The Farmer’s Children,” Elizabeth Bishop uses dark colors such as black and red to foreshadow the death of the children and blue to represent the cold and the winter. Additionally, she also uses yellow to show irony in the story by showing an illusion that the children are in a cozy, warm home but in reality they are facing abuse and neglect everyday. In “The Farmer’s Children,” Elizabeth Bishop portrays the theme that child neglect and abuse can lead to severe consequences by using color …show more content…
When Cato describes the stars he sees, there is use of color imagery. The text states, “Cato looked over his shoulder and saw how the tin roof of the farmhouse shone, bluish, and how, above it, the stars looked blue…” (Bishop 289) This shows how the color blue represent the cold as even the stars seem to be blue to the children. This represents a hidden sadness in the children's’ hearts because they face neglect from their stepmother. Also, there is blue color imagery used again when Cato is recalling a previous experience when they had to watch the barn. Cato explains how “he and his brother had walked home, still half asleep, in the gray-blue light just before sunrise.” (Bishop 288) Cato’s retelling of his experience shows how the stepmother is constantly neglecting and abusing the children. The gray-blue lights show how the children feeling dull and cold inside their hearts because they mentally and physically hurt by the abuse they receive. The author uses blue color imagery and symbolism through the children's experience to emphasize on how child abuse has a severe impact on …show more content…
The author describes the house as “high and boxlike. painted yellow with a roof of glittering tin.” (Bishop 286) This create an ironic setting as readers would expect to see a kind and warm family as suggested by the use of yellow color imagery but in reality, the children there are living under the neglect and abuse of their stepmother. Also, when the author describes the setting of the children eating, she states, “The kitchen was hot, and the smell of fried potatoes and the warm yellow light on the oil lamp on the table gave an illusion of peacefulness.” (Bishop 288) This shows how the author creates another ironic setting to show how the children seem to be living in a nice, warm, cozy home but they are actually suffering from the abuse of their