The Hunchback in the Park
By Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas remembers the tramp and the park from
childhood. How does he express the child’s idea that
the park only existed during the day?
“We knew every inhabitant of that park; every regular
visitor; every nursemaid; every gardener; every old
man. We knew the hour when the alarming retired
policeman came in to look at the dahlias and the hour
when the old lady arrived in the bath-chair with six
Pekinese, and a pale girl to read aloud to her. I think
she read the newspaper, but she always said she read
the Wizard. The face of the old man who sat summer
and winter on the bench looking over the reservoir. I
can see clearly now and I wrote a poem long after I’d
left the park and the sea-town called: ‘The Hunchback
in the Park’.”
What does the word
propped suggest?
No title or name - has become part of the
park’s rituals and his assigned name is
lonely and habitual, ’Solitary mister’. The
visitors to the park know the hunchback
and that he is always alone. Labeled by his
disability. How does the length of the line
support this?
The hunchback in the park
A solitary mister
Propped between trees and water
From the opening of the garden lock
That lets the trees and water enter
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark
alliteration of the ‘s’ sound emphasises the
sadness that it is the end of the day. The park’s
closure means he becomes homeless. The ‘s’
sound is also reminiscent of the sound of a deep
resonant bell sounding bringing the sound to life
in the poem.
FORM: Narrative poem
with several characters
(narrator / boys / tramp)
from the perspective of a
young boy
Verbs list the three basic essentials for life. They’re shocking ones as the hunchback
only has the basics to sustain him. Also he sleeps in a ‘dog kennel.’ This shows that
the hunchback has a fairly hand to mouth existence and appears little more than an
animal; one step up from a dog.
Childish point of
view – contrast
between a free,
playful young boy
and the homeless
man
Eating bread from a newspaper
Drinking water from the chained cup
That the children filled with gravel
In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship
Slept at night in a dog kennel
But nobody chained him up.
ambiguous. It is almost as though the narrator is
suggesting that maybe the hunchback should have
been chained up as far as his young self believed
because he was not normal. Could also suggest that
nobody needed to chain him up because he was
already ‘chained’ by his poverty
enjoys the beauty of the park. The natural beauty of the park is in contrast to
the degradation of his sleeping accommodation. The hunchback can be seen
to be as natural as water sitting on the ground but as unwanted as flood
water which makes this an effective simile in showing the hunchback’s
alienation from the rest of society.
Like the park birds he came early
suggests flooding and puddles
Like the water he sat down
And Mister they called Hey mister
suggests that the boys
The truant boys from the town
wanted the
hunchback to hear
Running when he had heard them clearly
their taunts. - an act
of bravado on the
On out of sound
boys’ parts.
Little punctuation – freedom – reflects the freedom of the boys?
interesting image. -‘out of sound’ instead of ‘out of sight.’ Could suggest that
they run far enough so the hunchback’s response is not audible or until the
sound of their feet or taunts can no longer be heard. The line ends abruptly
after 4 syllables - runs out of sound paralleling the words.
The boys copy the hunchback’s posture – acting cruelly about something that
he cannot alter and which is a disability. Harks back to the dark days when
people with disabilities were taken round and viewed as circus freaks for
people’s entertainment.
Past lake and rockery
Laughing when he shook his paper
Hunchbacked in mockery
Through the loud zoo of the willow groves
Dodging the park keeper
With his stick that picked up leaves.
Child-like, boyish or possibly
animalistic imagery – a word not
usually associated with a grown
man. Does this make the
hunchback seem more wild and
free or is it just the voice of the
boy (speaker) coming through?
Mataphor: the
tramp feels like
he is an animal
in the zoo –
watched,
gawked at for
entertainment
Childish description – innocence?
Animalistic imagery – up early with the birds, moves around like an animal, dodging the
park keeper etc. Has a basic life, simple food, ties into the isolation he feels – he is a
creature on the outskirts without human feelings? He is trapped but also free like an
animal in the way he exists in nature without ties – he’s free to roam and dream
He feels alone
And the old dog sleeper
even when he
Alone between nurses and swans
isn’t.
While the boys among willows
Made the tigers jump out of their eyes Metaphorical To roar on the rockery stones
boundlessness of
the boys’
And the groves were blue with sailors
imagination –
imaginary games
The only person he has is in his dreams
Made all day until bell time
Woman is
with
A woman figure without fault compared
nature – strong
and tall.
Straight as a young elm
Straight and tall from his crooked bones
That she might stand in the night He imagines
that she will
After the locks and chains
protect him.
Morose, sad tone – he imagines a woman without fault – she
stands with him, straight and perfect in contrast to the
hunchback
The boys are ‘wild’ like
‘strawberries.’ Wild strawberries
are small and very bitter or very
sweet - the hunchback actually
relishes the human contact they
provide him with? Or they are red
the colour of danger and naturally
wild
All night in the unmade park
After the railings and shrubberies
The birds the grass the trees the lake
And the wild boys innocent as strawberries
Had followed the hunchback
To his kennel in the dark.
lack of punctuation suggests they follow in
a stream of consciousness as things do in
a dream or in random thoughts – this
suggests it is a metaphorical following.
the reader is left unsure, in the
‘dark,’ as to what we should take
from this poem
The hunchback remembers the things and the boys when he
returns to his kennel. The punctuation leaves things ambiguous
as there could be a more literal and sinister reading of the poem
with the boys following then hunchback to his kennel to hurt him
in the dark when no-one can see. Thomas uses the simile ‘wild
boys innocent as strawberries’ and this can be read in many ways.
If the boys follow the hunchback to his kennel what are they
going to do to him? There is a threat of violence. There is also a
sense that the narrator the ‘I’ of the poem is not as innocent as
the fact in the past he ‘sailed’ a ship suggests as he knows that
the boys follow the hunchback which suggests he was amongst
them
Look through the following list of words. Which
would you use to describe the old man?
Friendly
Isolated
familiar
DESPISED
neglected
lonely
irritable
helpless
self-pitying
imaginative
ugly
frightening
still
proud
sad
humble
poor
Attitudes, themes and ideas
The poet manages to make us feel great sympathy for this man
who has been cast out from society through no fault of his own. It's
hard not to feel responsibility for the hunchback or even guilt after
reading this poem.
Themes
• People, especially children, can be very cruel. There is not one
example of the man going out of his way to be unkind or rude to
anyone. He gets annoyed and angry when the children tease him which is exactly what they want.
• We should not judge people simply on what they look like. This
man is and looks different. We get the sense that this is why he is
alone in the park, not for anything he might have done. This is sad
to think.
• Morals. The final picture of the man - who is regarded as so
worthless that we never know his name - retreating to his "kennel
in the dark" is tragic, and provides a damning moral comment on
society failing those who need care.
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) is probably the most
famous Welsh poet of all time.
• He was born in Swansea, South Wales. He wrote and
spoke in English, even though both his parents spoke
fluent Welsh. His father was an English teacher and
used to read a lot to him when he was very young.
Shakespeare was a particular favourite. Dylan
Thomas loved language and did very well in English
though not so well in other subjects. He left school at
16 to become a junior reporter for his local
newspaper.
• His first book of poetry, 18 Poems, published in 1934, was a success
and so he moved to London. He also started to drink heavily, a habit
which eventually blighted the rest of his short life. Two years later
he met Caitlin MacNamara and married her in 1937. They were well
known for having a stormy relationship.
• Thomas became well known for his deep, rich Welsh voice. He
made more than 200 broadcasts on BBC radio and did speaking
tours in America, where he was very popular, partly because he
lived up to the stereotype of a maverick poet - intelligent, gifted
and passionate but also drunk, reckless and argumentative.
• It was on his fourth and last trip to America in 1953 that he died
after a prolonged drinking session. His body was brought back from
New York to Laugharne where he was buried. When his wife died in
1994, she was buried with him.
Structure and language
Structure
• The poem looks regular, with seven clearly separate stanzas, all of which
have the same number of lines (six). However, the punctuation is irregular
and minimal: there are only three full stops in the whole poem (at the end
of stanzas two, four and seven). The gaps between the stanzas assist us in
reading the poem aloud.
• The lack of organisation (because of an absence of punctuation and
irregular, inconsistent rhyme) could reflect a lack of stability in the life of
the "hunchback".
Sound
• There is some rhyme (eg stanza one, first and last lines, "park/dark";
stanza four, lines one and three, "rockery/mockery") and half rhyme (eg
stanza one, lines two, three and five, "mister/water/enter") but there is no
regular pattern to it.
• One could easily choose to read several lines together as there are
examples of enjambment
Sentence structure and punctuation
• Apart from three full stops at the end of some
quite long and complex sentences, there is no
other punctuation in this poem. What is the
effect of this? Does it influence the way you read
the poem?
• Look at the third line of the last stanza, ‘The birds
the grass the trees the lake’. What is the effect of
this list?
Links with other poems:
Casehistory: Alison (head injury)
• Both deal with figures who are isolated in some way
(though for very different reasons).
• Disability is central to both poems.
• Both warn against judging by appearances. Alison is not
merely a set of notes (a "casehistory"); she has a past and
distinct present. The term "hunchback"reflects that he is
judged and known only by his appearance.
• Both central characters' lives are, for different reasons,
empty.
• A reader will certainly feel sympathy for both characters.