back symbol

Write a critique on the bear-and-squirrel game in Look Back in Anger.

The bear-and –squirrel game in Look Back in Anger is a symbolic device that serves an important dramatic purpose. The conjugal life of Jimm and Alison is marked by tension. This game, in fact, makes them forget the bitterness of their lives and gives them momentary happiness.

The “bear” and “the squirrel” represent Jimmy and Alison respectively. They are the stuffed toys that Alison and Jimmy keep on their dressing table. They are described symbolically in the stage directions at the beginning of the play there is a heavy chest of drawers in which with other things like a “lagged tattered toy teddy bear and a soft woolly squirrel” Jimmy feels restless and isolated as a bear does. Bears never live in herds, Jimmy is also a misfit in the contemporary social setup. On the other hand, Alison is tender and docile like a squirrel living in a shady tree and eating nuts. Alison has a bitter experience after her marriage. She married Jimmy much against her parent's wishes. As Jimmy had no accommodation of his own as he was jobless they had to stay with Hugh one of Jimmy’s friend. The relationship between Alison and Jimmy is so strained that she is reluctant to reveal her pregnancy to him. When Helena suggests to her to reveal her pregnancy to Jimmy or must get out of “madhouse”, Alison points to the game of ‘bearand-squirrel’ as an escape into dumb, uncomplicated affection.”

The bear-and-squirrel game is a kind of escape for Alison and Jimmy from the harsh realities of life and their failure to adjust themselves to each other in their marital life. In Act I when Cliff goes out, Jimmy and Alison begin to play this game. Jimmy affectionately calls Alison a “beautiful, grey-eyed squirrels”, a “hoarding nut-munching squirrel”, etc., and this affectionate description pleased Alison so much that she produces the sound of a squirrel and calls Jimmy a “jolly super bear”, “a really marvelous bear”. In this moment of bliss, she is about to tell Jimmy about her pregnancy when Cliff enters the room suddenly and Alison’s dream world is shattered.

Meanwhile, being fed up with Jimmy’ rude behavior, Alison decides to leave him, picks up the toy squirrel from the chest of drawers is about to put it in her suitcase but puts it back in the drawer. Since she has decided to leave Jimmy the game with the squirrel loses its meaning for her. Her picking up the toy squirrel suggests her feeling of nostalgia and putting it back shows her disillusionment and disappointment. 

At the end of the drama when a repentant Alison literally falls at Jimmy’s feet groveling, he takes her in his arms and consoles her saying that he and she will be together again in their bear’s cave and squirrel’s nest and will live on lovely and on lots of nuts. Thus the bear-and-squirrel game is very significant in developing the action of the drama, Look Back in Anger.