Title

  • Back problems, disability
  • Routine
  • Lonely man
  • Nature

What it’s about?

This poem’s about a tramp that lives in the park, and is bullied by a group of boys. The poem has an emotional side to it because it’s about lonely man who is isolated by everything around him. The park is the only thing there for the man.

Language

  • Third person talk about the hunchback
  • Also has one line in first person, there’s use of a personal pronoun.
  • “Like the water he sat down” – Simile, still water isn’t good, shows that he is useless and smelly
  • Simile, repetition, metaphor and alliteration.

Structure

  • The poem is a series of observation. It’s loosely structured around the narrator recalling memories from his childhood. These visual descriptions build up to give the poem a dreamlike quality.
  • Seven stanzas
  • Formal, regular
  • Less punctuation

Feelings/Ideas

  • Loneliness – the Hunchback is lonely, doesn’t have any friends, and lives in a kennel because he doesn’t have a house or anyone to live with.
  • People treat the Hunchback without care they don’t think about his feelings, especially the boys to bunk of school as they scare him.
  • The Hunchback is vulnerable, he is lonely and imagines ‘a women figure without fault’ to protect him.