Laura’s collection of glass animals seems to stand as a clear comparison for Laura herself. Like the glass, she is unspeakably delicate. The glass is clear and colorless, waiting to be filled with the versions of herself that her family places on her. When the glass is disturbed, Laura cries out as if she herself has been hurt. Like the glass animals, Laura becomes broken with the slightest wrong touch. Rather than simply symbolizing her fragility, the menagerie comes to represent Laura’s small, subjugated sense of selfhood. She hides the animals when her mother approaches, instead pretending to study typing, which represents her mother’s most recent formulation of who Laura should be. Laura hides and protects the animals just as she hides herself away. In particular, the unicorn symbolizes Laura selfhood. When she hands it to Jim, she says, “Oh, be careful–if you breathe, it breaks!” (779).Yet she insists she trusts him with it, even after he warns her that he is clumsy. 

The unicorn is different, but lives among horses “and doesn’t complain about it” (780). By trusting Jim with the unicorn, Laura is opening herself up to him and trusting that he will handle her carefully. When the unicorn breaks, Laura is surprisingly calm—contrary to her earlier reactions to any threat to her glass collection.