"The Hunchback in the Park" represents the relegation of the individual in a society that prefers the

normal over the abnormal. The dialectical pair in accordance with hierarchy in such a stance would
be normal/abnormal. The park represents a place of social communion. The hunchback appears to
be isolated even in such a social setting: "a solitary mister". He appears to be propped up between the
'trees and water'; that is, he appears to be foregrounded in nature owing to his isolation. His
reference of time is indicated by the bell at dark. His is a stagnant , sterile existence.

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

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.

His preoccupation against nature attributes to him traits of an animal existence. He comes across as
an animal as he eats from a newspaper and drinks water from his 'chained' cup. The idea of being
'chained' highlights the qualities of a limited existence. The first part of the poem appears to be
narrated through the consciousness of a child. The boy says that he hunchback slept in the fountain
basin where he sailed his ship. The basin functioned as a dog kennel, and the man slept in it.

'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 had heard them clearly
On out of sound

He came early like the park birds, says the speaker. He is thus endowed with an animal existence that
is kinetic. And yet when the speaker of the poem states that he sat down like 'water', this animal life
is attributed with a vegetative existence. The term' water' also lends the person in question a kind of
transparency. He is unknown to the ones around them; they do not address him by his first name but
by an anonymous 'mister'. The hunchback heard the malingerers though they were well out of
hearing distance. This proves that his sensory perceptions were quite sharp to the mockeries hurled
at him.

He runs to escape from the poking words of the truant boys. They laughed even while he shook the
paper to withdraw into his shell from the routine affairs of the world that did not care for the
hunchback. He was not only bent physically, but also by life's oppressions. He was a specimen or
spectacle to the so-called normal world. Therefore the place he was positioned in came across to the
spectators as a zoo, as he was caged in the atrocities of life. Akin to an animal, he follows his instincts
and runs for his life past the park-keeper with his stick that was his only support. The stick appears
to be conspicuous in its support to the hunchback as compared to the human beings around.

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.

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.

The old dog sleeper was alone among nurses and swans. The first (the nurses)being an epitome of
service and the second(the swans) an ideal of beauty. The hunchback could not contribute in both
these aspects to society .The groves appeared to be blue instead of green as the sailors in uniform
foregrounded the scene. The boys appeared to infuriate even the tigers, as their eyes jumped out of
their sockets.

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

To escape from his humdrum existence, the hunchback conjures up an imaginary partner -a woman
figure without fault. She is perfect to the extent of perfection. She is as straight as the elm as
compared to the hunchback. "Straight and tall from his crooked bones" also points to the belief of
Semitic religions that the Woman was created from the ribs of Man. The concept therefore comes
across as an inversion of the woman as an imperfection as compared to the Man. The poet thus
appears to invert the dialectical pair-Man/Woman, Normal/Abnormal to Woman/Man. She may
with stand the 'locks and chains', as she is mentally stronger.

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

Meanwhile, the park is compared to a unmade bed owing to its messy nature-crowded with the
"After the railings and shrubberies/The birds the grass the trees the lake/And the wild boys innocent
as strawberries." Though the boys are wild and reckless they are as innocent as strawberries. They is
no ulterior motive to them as they are just like that. They followed the hunchback to his kennel in the
dark just out of sheer curiosity. Whether he is relegated or regarded, he reverts to his beastly being,
for, life does not open new avenues for him.

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.

First thoughts
1 A man, perhaps a vagrant, who spends his days in a local park
2 He is ‘solitary’, but there is no indication in the poem that the other visitors take any notice of
him.
3 The boys mock him, treating him with contempt. He seems rejected and solitary.
Looking more closely
1 He spends every hour of daylight in the park, from the moment it opens to when it closes.
2 a All suggest that he lives and survives in poverty.
b This could suggest that he lives in freedom – or that he is in an even worse situation than a
dog, as no one looks after or takes any notice of him.
3 a Thomas describes: birds, water, lake, rockery, willow groves. The park suggests nature, but
perhaps a formal, suburban interpretation of it.
 b He drinks from the cup and is abused by the boys. Other than this, he seems isolated from
the rest of the park’s life: he is ‘propped between’ trees and water; he is ‘Alone between
nurses and swans’.
4 e.g.
• ‘propped’ makes him sound like an object
• he is compared to ‘water’ and ‘park birds’
• he is described as an ‘old dog sleeper’
Thomas’s language choice seems to both objectify the hunchback, and cast him as a part of the
natural world.

Developing your ideas

1 a He creates an image of himself as ‘A woman figure without fault’ who stands alone in the
park all night.
b It suggests that he is unhappy in his current life and longs for transformation.
c It connects with the earlier description of him as a part of the natural world.
2 All are arguable with evidence and explanation.
3
Statement Evidence Comment
There is very The first punctuation mark isThis gives the poem an uninterrupted pace, flowing
little the full stop at the end of the
like time from morning till night, from the unlocking
punctuation second verse, line 12 of the gate to the closing bell
This gives the impression of a series of isolated
images, like a collage of unrelated snapshots, reflecting
the hunchback’s isolation
There is no ‘Like the park birds he came This creates a loose, disjointed structure, reflecting the
regular rhyme early different points of view Thomas uses
scheme Like the water he sat down
Thomas uses … Running when he had This holds the poem together while giving its language
half-rhyme heard them clearly a musical quality
throughout the On out of sound’
poem