The bear and squirrel symbolizes Jimmy's and Alison's immature role-play game to escape from their socially and emotionally violent class differences. Jimmy and Alison are bear and squirrel living in a jungle where steel traps lie all around them, symbolizing the pitfalls and dangers in life. At the end of the play, Jimmy says to Alison: "We'll be together in our bear's cave, and our squirrel's drey, and we'll live on honey, and nuts. . .And we'll sing songs about ourselves--about warm trees and snug caves, and lying in the sun. And you'll keep those big eyes on my fur, and help me keep my claws in order, because I'm a bit of a soppy, scruffy sort of a bear. And I'll see that you keep that sleek, busy tail glistening as it should, because you're a very beautiful squirrel, but you're none too bright either, so we've got to be careful." (Osborne 96)
In the end, Jimmy and Alison admit their need for one another's constant support, saying they are "very timid little animals" who are afraid of the "steel cruel traps" all around them. Alison's steel trap took away her child and any future motherhood, and the play equates this with Jimmy's loss of his father at ten, when he learned about "love...betrayal...and death."
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