The Hunchback in the Park By Dylan Thomas

Subject A homeless hunchback living in the local park is teased by schoolboys. The underlying subject of the poem is loneliness and isolation, and how someone might be affected by them The power of the imagination

Point of View The poem is narrated either by a young child who grew up and tells us about the hunchback as he remembers seeing him in the park The narrator imagines the hunchback’s life

Language “Mister” shows that the narrator feels respect for the hunchback, though the “wild boys” use it as a teasing term. “elm” is slightly oxymoronic because it is presented as something beautiful and desirable, yet traditionally represents darkness and shadows. Perhaps this relates to the shadows of a memory.

Imagery “Straight and tall from his crooked bones” is a contrast, and presents the idea that even something so deformed can create something beautiful in the imagination, even if it is only a personification of what he truly desires “Tigers jump out of their eyes” relates to the boys playing in the park, seeing things that are only there as they illustrate the stories they create for their games which makes us ask how much of this poem is actually real and how much is just an illustration from a child’s mind? There is also a lot of animalistic imagery and comparisons within the poem which suggests the public’s view of the hunchback being no more than a stray animal.

Form and Structure There is a very messy structure, almost like the poem is forced. This could represent how it is being forced from a childhood memory so everything comes in bits and pieces as the mind retrieves it. There is no clear rhyming scheme, yet rhymes do appear in most stanzas, the most memorable being “park” and “dark” because they are repeated in the first and last stanza, so the park comes out of the darkness of memory. There is also enjambment in between the stanzas which suggests the messy yet continuous structure of a memory.

Tone The tone suggests the narrator has regrets. He talks about how the boys follow the hunchback to his “kennel in the dark” but still says they’re “innocent as strawberries” which suggests they don’t know what they’re doing but are still annoying like the strawberry pips.

Links Give - the sense of being an outcast needing support, outsider being left out Horse Whisperer- outsider being left out Medusa- something ugly created and deserves something beautiful