Starter

1. Starter • Sometimes people get picked on or bullied because they are seen as being 'different' in some way.  People can be bullied because of a disability, the colour of their skin or because they don't wear the latest fashions. • Can you think of a book you have read, a film that you have watched or even a moment from your own life where this has happened? • Think about: • who was being bullied • what made people pick on this person • how you think the person who was bullied felt • why children, in particular, seem to pick on people who seem different or appear to be outsiders in some way. • Be prepared to share your ideas with the class.

2. The Hunchback in the Park LO: To explore the character of the Hunchback

3. Park

4. Hunchback

5. Rank these words, how does the speaker feel about the hunchback.

6. The character of the hunchback • The term, ‘hunchback’ is now considered offensive. The medical name for the condition is kyphosis and it is the result of an abnormal upward curvature of the spine. • There are many ‘hunchbacks’ in film and literature and they are usually presented as outsiders or even monsters. The hunchback of Notre Dame may be the most famous of these characters. He was created by Victor Hugo in his 1831 novel of the same title and there have been many film versions of this story including a film by Disney released in 1996.The character of the hunchback of Notre Dame or Quasimodo is feared and ill treated by many of the other characters in the story but generates a great deal of sympathy from readers and viewers. • From this description, what similarities are there between Hugo’s hunchback of Notre Dame and Thomas’s hunchback in the park? To find out more, you could read a summary of Hugo’s novel, egwikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunchback_of_Notre_Dame.

7. Discussion Questions • Who is talking in the poem? Do we see more than one perspective on things? • Why is the hunchback an outsider? • Why don’t the boys understand that he is ill? • How do you feel about the hunchback?

8. What sort of character is the Hunchback?Chose four adjectives to describe him and chose evidence from the poem to back it up! lonely angry kind funny rich imaginative happy poor sociable

9. Which adjective best describes him? • Can you think of any other adjectives to describe him?

10. FORM: Narrative poem with several characters (narrator / boys / tramp) He is alone but surrounded by nature. 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 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. Narrator’s voice – he is telling us a story. Children are selfish – they don’t care about what the hunchback needs Compared to a dog but he is free. Animal metaphors – hunchback seems wild and inhuman

11. STRUCTURE: the poem is a series of memories from the narrator’s childhood. A bit like a dream Links tramp to nature so he seems to be a park of 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 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. The boys shout at the tramp The boys are cruel. They make fun of his hunchback. The tramp feels like he is an animal in the zoo. NATURE SIMILES: not like other humans, seems to feel more at home in the wild.

12. He feels alone even when he isn’t. The boys are free to be wild like tigers. 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 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 Compares the hunchback to a dog again. Woman is compared with nature – strong and tall. We don’t know if the woman is real or he has imagined the perfect woman. He imagines that she will protect him.

13. Loneliness: he is alone because no one understands him. He is more connected with nature. Thoughtlessness: the boys don’t think about how their cruelty is hurting him. Weakness: The hunchback wants to be protected by the woman MOCKING LANGUAGE : boys bully the hunchback, chatty language is life like. 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. The boys seem harmless now, even though they weren’t innocent earlier. He is compared to a dog again.

14. 3 similes • 2 metaphor • A metaphor about the boys (stanza 5) • A metaphor about the park (stanza 4) • What is the effect of each metaphor?

15. Think about the idea of an outsider. Your next task is to write one of the following pieces of writing: • Either: • A poem or piece of descriptive writing about an outsider with whom you are familiar • The first time I saw him, I knew he was different. • People used to cross the road to avoid him. • A piece of writing about an incident where you treated somebody badly and now regret your behaviour • I always regretted the way I treated ______. • Looking back, it wasn’t _____ that was the bad guy, it was me. • a piece of writing from the point of view of one of the boys who used to torment the hunchback, written some years later. • I remember when I used to walk in the park, he was always there. • I never knew it was an illness...

16. Plenary • If the man was a colour he would be ______ because _____________________________. • If the man was a plant he would be ______ because _____________________________. • If the man was a car he would be ______ because _____________________________. • If the man was a food he would be ______ because _____________________________. • If the man was a drink he would be ______ because _____________________________.