The Hunchback In The Park is ostensibly the story of an isolated,

deformed man who lives in a park. It chronicles the cruelty that this
man had to endure and makes a reader think about how they treat
people and how their actions towards those who are different could
make those people feel. Thomas does a superb job of creating
sympathy for the poems eponymous “hero” and in doing so really
makes the reader consider what life is like for the character and by
extension others that are different in some way.

Dylan Thomas combines themes of childhood, adulthood, humanity,

and nature. His words describe a scenario that causes the reader to
ponder why human beings are the way we are, even as young
children. He points out the tendency of children to make fun of those
that are different, and the tendency of adults to avoid people with
differences. He also uses the man with a hunchback to reveal how
people can transcend societal values to be able to live above them.
The man who lives alone is able to enjoy nature to create a picture of
something perfect. This suggests that the perfection of the mind is
more important than bodily perfection. The speaker in The Hunchback
In The Park helps the readers to value human life because of the
human mind and creativity rather than physical form. The Hunchback
In The Park causes the readers to question their own feelings toward
other human beings, toward nature, and toward their own minds.

Form and Tone

The Hunchback In The Park is a sombre, sad piece. It is presented in
seven stanzas, all of which are equal in length, containing six lines
each. Despite this highly organized structure, the poem has a
disjointed feel due to the long sentences. The poem is littered
with enjambment lines and actually only has three full sentences in
total. This is possibly to help emphasize the fact that on the face of it
the Hunchback’s life is simple, but underneath what everybody sees
there is a complex human being with a wealth of emotions that he
struggles to deal with.

The Hunchback In The Park Analysis

First Stanza
The hunchback in the park
(…)
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark
Despite the poem, which you can read in full here, being ostensibly
about the cruelty that the protagonist of the poem has to endure it is
interesting how the narrator still refers to him as the hunchback. There
is a wealth of partial end-rhymes in this stanza (water/enter,
lock/dark). This helps with reading The Hunchback In The Park. The
partial rhymes act as an alternative to punctuation. This device serves
to represent how different the character is from the “norm”.

The Hunchback In The Park opens up with a description of the main

object of this poem, the hunchback. He was “a solitary mister” and the
title along with this stanza suggests that his deformity is the reason
for his solitude. The speaker describes him as “propped between trees
and water” in the park from the beginning until the end of the day.
The reader can imagine only one reason for the man to spend his
entire day in the park. He is clearly a homeless man or jobless at the
very least.
Second Stanza
Eating bread from a newspaper
(…)
But nobody chained him up.
The first two lines of this stanza evoke images of a prisoner this is not
coincidental. The suggestion is that being different in the way that he
is makes the hunchback feels like a hostage. This is followed up by
commenting on how kids cruelly tease the man. Filling his drinking
cup with gravel. The man is then described sleeping in a kennel. The
suggestion being that he doesn’t even feel human due to his situation.
This rapidly increases a reader’s sympathy for this character.

The descriptions in this stanza give further evidence that the

hunchback is living in a state of poverty. He eats out of a newspaper
and drinks out of a chained cup. This stanza also reveals the nature of
those who antagonize this poor man in the park. The children had
apparently filled his cup with gravel. The speaker then remembers his
own childhood, noting that the speaker filled the cup in the very
fountain in which the speaker once sailed his ship.

Third Stanza
Like the park birds he came early
(…)
On out of sound
Once again partial rhymes are used throughout to give an ad hoc
punctuation. Thomas uses a classic tool, much used in the romantic
era, by comparing the poems eponymous lead to the natural world he
helps create a positive image of the hunchback. Examples of this are:
describing his arrival at the park as bird-like and his sitting down like
water. When he is addressed by truanting school kids the hunchback
flees, he is clearly not comfortable with the way he is treated. This
creates further sympathy as we see this person is clearly upset deeply
by how he is treated.

This man seems to have a set schedule. He comes to the park early in
the morning and he sits down by the water until he hears the cries of
the “truant boys from town”. He runs from them to get out of hearing
distance.

Fourth Stanza
Past lake and rockery
(…)
With his stick that picked up leaves.
Once again Thomas evokes the natural world as the hunchback
attempts to escape his tormentors. It would appear that this character
is mocked no matter what he does. It is clearly not just the local
children that mock him and make his life difficult though as we see
introduced here, the park keeper clearly does not like him being in the
park. It does somewhat raise the question of why the hunchback visits
the park if it causes him so much hardship.

The speaker reveals that the mocking boys treat the hunchback man
more like an animal in a zoo than another human being. They laugh
“when he shook his paper” and they walk around “hunchbacked in
mockery”. The speaker refers to the park as the “loud zoo” to imply
that way in which the boys are treating the hunchback. They continue
to mock him, “dodging the park keeper” which is perhaps the park
ranger or another person in authority who might put a stop to their
teasing of the man.
Fifth Stanza
And the old dog sleeper
(…)
And the groves were blue with sailors
Here the real world and metaphorical mix together. The old dog-
sleeper is a nickname for the hunchback himself who was compared
to a dog in the second stanza. It is clear he has temporarily found
refuge with the swans. Another nod to nature, perhaps to highlight
that whilst the man may be different he is every bit as beautiful as the
rest of the animals/plants. The boys are likened to tigers and this is
undoubtedly to highlight their predatory nature whilst staying true to
the natural-imagery.

The speaker reveals the man’s ability to transcend the jeering of the
children. He sits alone while the boys “made the tigers jump out of
their eyes”. Even in the midst of this, the hunchback is able to enjoy
the swans and the stones and admire the sailors.

Sixth Stanza
Made all day until bell time
(…)
After the locks and chains
The first line of this stanza effectively intimates that the hunchback has
to endure these cruel games all day until the school day is done and
the kids who have been truanting then have to depart. The hunchback
then discovers a woman and compares her to himself. She is
everything he is not. She is described as being without fault and
straight and tall. This stanza suggests that the hunchback has a
longing for a relationship with somebody like that “that she might
stand in the night” suggests he wants companionship. He wants
somebody to be in the park with him when the gates are closed at the
night. The fact that this is unlikely is an example of dramatic irony and
just adds to the sadness of the stanza.

This stanza reveals what the hunchback man is doing while he endures
the scoffing of the children. He is making “a woman figure without
fault”. This reveals that the man is an artist, and though he has a
deformed figure and lives in solitude, he has a mind able to create a
beautiful piece of artwork that stands in direct opposition to his own
body. While he is hunched over, she is “straight and tall” and while he
leaves the park to sleep in a kennel, she stays there even after the park
has been locked up. Perhaps he is carving the image into a tree or
some other part of nature that would naturally stay in the park. It is
unlikely that he would have artists materials, as the speaker has
already implied that he is homeless. Whatever the case, he has created
a beautiful piece of artwork that does not have to leave the park when
it closes.

Seventh Stanza
All night in the unmade park
(…)
To his kennel in the dark.
The hunchback continues his longing but reflects on the day’s events.
How it is a mix of the beauty of the park with its shrubs, trees, lakes
etc. and the “wild boys”. It is clear that the people of the park ruin a
place of beauty for the hunchback. Why he continues to frequent the
park is left ambiguous. Perhaps he stays within the park because it has
a beauty that he cannot find within himself?

It is clear he is considered by most of the other characters in The

Hunchback In The Park to be subhuman. There are no less than
three allusions to him being dog-like. Plus when he is talked about, he
is referred to as “mister”, as if he is not deemed worthy of having a
proper name. This all adds to the tragic nature of the hunchback’s
predicament, presumably homeless, would he have anywhere else to
go other than the park?

This stanza of The Hunchback In The Park reveals that the picture of
the beautiful woman represents something that the speaker longs for.
Perhaps he longs to stay all night in the beautiful park rather than
returning to his “kennel” to sleep. Perhaps he longs to have the
straight and slender body he has portrayed in her picture. Perhaps he
wishes to have for himself a woman like the one he has created. The
speaker does not reveal exactly why he has made this picture, but he
has revealed that the picture remains in the park even when the
hunchback has to return “to his kennel in the dark” with “the wild
boys” following him. The fact that the speaker describes these boys as
“innocent as strawberries” in this stanza reveals something about his
beliefs about human nature. The boys have already been described as
jeering and scoffing at a poor old man. They are hardly innocent.
However, the speaker seems to imply that because they are only
young boys, they don’t know any better, and the tendency to scoff at
people with differences is a part of human nature that must be
overcome with maturity.

About Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas was a Maverick and a very famous Welsh Poet. He died
tragically young in 1953, aged just thirty-nine, due to his abuse of
alcohol. He wrote exclusively in English despite his parents both being
fluent Welsh speakers and in spite of this, he is still considered to be
one of Wales’ greatest poets.

Dylan Thomas is described as “a neurotic, sickly child who shied away

from school and preferred reading on his own” (poets.org). It is easy
to see how Thomas would relate with both the hunchback and the
speaker in The Hunchback In The Park. He seemed to observe people
more than engage with them. Thomas uses the boys, the hunchback,
and the portrait of the woman to explore themes of humanity,
creativity, and nature in The Hunchback In The Park.