Can you wonder that a canary live with a bear? This strange logic is found in the short story “The Mask of the Bear”, which is written by Margaret Laurence and collected in her book A Bird in the House. The author uses animals as symbols to delimit the qualities of Grandfather Connor and Grandmother Connor. Grandfather Connor is like a bear and Grandmother Connor is like a canary, where they live in The Brick House just like a cage. To focus on Grandfather Connor, he has the similar looks, temper and power of a bear. In “The Mask of the Bear”, the bear symbolizes Grandfather Connor. The first relative between Grandfather Connor and the bear is their looks. Grandfather Connor likes to wear “an enormous coat made of the pelt of a bear. So shaggy and coarse-furred, so unevenly clouded in patches ranging from amber to near-black, and so vile-smelling when it had become wet with snow”(Page 1). When Grandfather Connor wear this coat makes his body looks huge and heavy just like a bear, when the coat diffuse stench, that makes Grandfather Connor is who likes “alive to some lonely and giant Kodiak crankily roaming a high frozen plateau, or an the north.” We know that from the quote Grandfather Connor does not very regard his extrinsic. “In my mind I sometimes called him “The Great Bear.”(Page 2) We also can know how Grandfather Connor’s body type from how Vanessa, Beth’s daughter and Grandfather Connor’s Granddaughter, calls him this appellation prove how Grandfather Connor’s appearance like a bear. Grandfather Connor not only has an ugly looks but also has a terrible temper. We learn that bear is a kind of territorial animal, they have their own space that keep other animals away from. They are easy to get angry, anything makes they unhappy they will fury. The same trait exists in Grandfather Connor, as he always stay in the basement. “Grandfather would prowl through the living room as though seeking a place o