The writer Clarice Lispector reserved, throughout her work, a privileged space for the encounter between humans and animals, through exchanges of glances that destabilize the ontological hierarchy amid beings. In an argument interested in the role of the gaze during the encounter with animal difference, we will analyze the short stories "O búfalo", from Laços de Família (1960), and "Tentação", from A legião estrangeira (1964), in dialogue with the works of Giorgio Agamben and John Berger regarding the social place of the zoo as a device for separation, control, and the cataloging of what is given as nature and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]