How does James Fenton use imagery in The Milkfish Gatherers?

Besides the obvious correlation of darkness with evil and light with good, the dark and light imagery in "The Milkfish Gatherers" offers many plays on these classic figures of language. The colors of the stevedore's clothes, the "yellow peaked cap" and "patched pink shorts," offer their own sense of light. The stevedore is the future revolutionary. These clothes may be all his worldly goods, but he has the light on his side. The light is also a destructive force. The island burns, and the "sharp blue line across the sky," which is a thing of light and future life, also connotes pain. New life cuts and stings.

As the old sun sets and a new sun rises, the reader feels the old cliché, an apt one for the death of an old regime and the rising of a new democratic agency. The dark is a time of destruction, the light of rebirth.