1. At least since medieval times, Europeans and then Americans have associated certain vices with particular colors. It remains common, for example, to speak of someone "turning green with envy" or "black with rage." Yellow was associated with jealousy. Jealousy is frequently used as a synonym for envy, but envy is rarely used as a synomyn for jealousy. This is because the first meaning of jealousy involves suspiciousness about the feelings or fidelity of another. Minny is not jealous in this primary sense. Instead she is covetous; she envies the possessions of others. So the author had a choice. Minny did not have to turn yellow. She could have turned green. Why might the author have chosen yellow as Minny's punishment? Who else in the United States in the late 1870s was considered "yellow"?
2. It is the parrot who gets to pronounce Minny's fate. Why not her wronged sister? or her mother who had warned her this could happen?
