AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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‘The Hunchback in the Park’
by Dylan Thomas
Learning Objectives:
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AO1: Respond to the using details from the poem to support your opinion
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AO2: Analyse the writers’ methods (language, structure and form) and the
purposes of these methods
Pre-reading activity
 Can you remember seeing a tramp and wondering about his / her lifestyle, his /
her thoughts, his / her past?
 In pairs, discuss whether you think that you could survive utterly alone. What
would you find difficult? Would there be anything positive about this lifestyle?
 Note four reasons why people become down-and-outs?
1.
2.
3.
4.
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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 Read the poem.
Cwmdonkin Park; the park which inspired Thomas’ poem.
In a radio broadcast called ‘Reminisces of Childhood’, Dylan Thomas recalled the
park he’d played in as a child:
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’.
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? For example,
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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see if you can explain how, ‘…the opening of the garden lock / lets the trees and water
enter.’
 Discuss your ideas with a partner, before sharing your opinions with the rest of
the class.
What was the park like, and which people and animals were frequent visitors?
Let’s take a closer look
Stanza 1
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
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What pictures does the second line of the poem suggest to you? How does
the length of the line help create this image?
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
What does the word ‘propped’ (line 3) suggest?
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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Why do you think the poet describes the bell as ‘Sunday sombre’?
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Stanza 2
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.
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How and why do the boys mock the hunchback?
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What is the effect of the comparison between the hunchback and a dog?
Think about status.
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What are the connotations of the twice-used verb, ‘chained’?
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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Stanza 3
Like the park birds he came early
Like the water he sat down
And Mister they called Hey Mister
The truant boys from the town
Running when he heard them clearly
On out of sound
Animalistic comparisons are not only used by Thomas to emphasise the
hunchback’s status. What do you think the similes, ‘Like the park birds he came early
/ Like the water he sat down’ suggest?
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Stanza 4
Past lake and rockery
Laughing when he shook his paper
Hunchback in mockery
Through the loud zoo of the willow graves
Dodging the park keeper
With his stick that picked up leaves
Is the park really ‘a loud zoo’?
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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How does Thomas create the fast pace of this stanza? Think about letter sounds,
punctuation and line lengths.
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Stanza 5
And the old dog sleeper
Alone between nurses and swans
While the boys among willows
Made the tigers jump out of their eyes
To roar on the rockery stones
And the groves were blue with sailors
What do you imagine the boys doing when they, ‘Made the tigers jump out of their
eyes’?
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What do you associate with a) nurses and b) swans?
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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What is the effect of this: ‘Alone between nurses and swans’?
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Stanza 6
Made all day until bell time
A woman figure without fault
Straight as a young elm
Straight and tall from his crooked bones
That she might stand in the night
After the locks and chains
Look carefully at the description of the woman. What does the hunchback’s
creation of the woman tell us about the character of the hunchback himself?
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Fill in the missing letters of the three words below to reveal what the ‘woman figure’
symbolises in the mind of the hunchback:
B _ AU _ _
_R_E__M
CO_ _ A _ I _ N _ _ IP
Write a sentence or two to explain the way in which she symbolises each of these
things, with reference to the hunchback’s feelings throughout the poem. Use one
quotation to support each of your ideas.
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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Stanza 7
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.
What is the effect of the poet’s omission of commas in line 39 (‘The birds the grass
the trees the lake’)?
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Why do you think the poet describes the boys who torment the hunchback as,
‘Innocent as strawberries’?
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How did the hunchback make up for his ugliness, his poverty and his taunts of the
children? Is the way he used his imagination (to make the woman) at all similar to
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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the way the children used theirs, in their games? What does this fact serve to
remind us?
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 Look through the following list of words. Which would you use to describe the
old man?
friendly
neglected
lonely
self-pitying
helpless
irritable
poor
ugly
proud
isolated
familiar
DESPISED
imaginative
still
frightening
sad
humble
 Which details in the poem suggest them to you? Match the word(s) you have
chosen with a brief quote. Can you think of any words of your own?
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Assignments
 Choose one of the following questions and answer on lined paper.
1. As if you were filming him, write a description of the hunchback as he hears
the bell and leaves the park. Add plenty of your own ideas to the details that
we are given in the poem. It might be helpful if you worked in pairs. One of
you could pretend to be the hunchback and carry out the actions, and the
other could make notes as to how s/he moves and acts, etc.
2. Pretend you are the hunchback. Write a monologue of his private thoughts
as he sits on the bench. Include his reactions to what he sees and hears.
Also think of his past, and his dreams for the future.
3. Compose a character poem of your own describing one of the following: a
child waiting outside a pub; a beachcomber; a busker; an old person in a
wheelchair.
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My Itchy Toes Smell Loads
 Complete the table below with what you consider to be the
most important quotes and poetic devices within each category.
meaning
imagery
tone
Structure
and Form
language
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Comparing poems
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AO3: Make comparisons and explain links between texts, evaluating
writers’ different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects
 Use the Venn diagram to find the differences and similarities between the two
poems.
‘The Hunchback in the Park’
‘The Clown Punk’
Sample exam question
 Compare the characters and situations in ‘The Hunchback in the Park’ and
‘The Clown Punk’.
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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Comparing poems
-
AO3: Make comparisons and explain links between texts, evaluating
writers’ different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects
 Use the Venn diagram to find the differences and similarities between the two
poems.
‘The Hunchback in the Park’
‘Give’
Sample exam question
 Compare the poetic techniques and devices used in ‘The Hunchback in the
Park’ and ‘Give’.
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Planning an essay
 Using MITSL as a guide, create an essay plan or spider diagram for your
essay question. You must include 3 - 5 points of comparison. Number each point
in the order you would write about them in your exam. When you write your
essay, remember to analyse structural and poetic devices for their effect and
meaning. Don’t just list.
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
The Hunchback in the Park
The hunchback in the park
A solitary mister
Propped between trees and water
From the opening of the garden lock
5
That lets the trees and water enter
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark
Eating bread from a newspaper
Drinking water from the chained cup
That the children filled with gravel
10
In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship
Slept at night in a dog kennel
But nobody chained him up.
Like the park birds he came early
Like the water he sat down
15
And Mister they called Hey mister
The truant boys from the town
Running when he had heard them clearly
On out of sound
Past lake and rockery
20
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.
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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16
And the old dog sleeper
Alone between nurses and swans
While the boys among willows
Made the tigers jump out of their eyes
To roar on the rockery stones
30
And the groves were blue with sailors
Made all day until bell time
A woman figure without fault
Straight as a young elm
Straight and tall from his crooked bones
35
That she might stand in the night
After the locks and chains
All night in the unmade park
After the railings and shrubberies
The birds the grass the trees the lake
40
And the wild boys innocent as strawberries
Had followed the hunchback
To his kennel in the dark.
Dylan Thomas
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AQA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - POETRY ANTHOLOGY: CHARACTER AND VOICE
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Acknowledgments and thanks
Written by Chantel Mathias and Amanda Fiegel
Introduction and copy by Karen Bishop
Audio file scripts and recordings by Barrie McDermid: www.podcastrevision.co.uk
Interactive resources and design by David Riley: www.triptico.co.uk
Image: http://www.infobritain.co.uk/cwmdonkin_park.htm
Thomas, Dylan
‘The Hunchback in the Park’ by Dylan Thomas from Collected Poems (Orion).
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this collection. If notified,
we will be pleased to rectify any errors / omissions.
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