Summary
Still speaking to her brother, the speaker says that at night she seeks him out, wanting him to hold and comfort her, but that she cannot find him. She wonders whether she is alone, and says that she can hear spies whispering. In fact, she says, she and her brother are still out in the witch's forest, and both the forest and the fire that killed the witch remain very real and present.
Analysis
In "Gretel in Darkness," the short, middle lines of each stanza tend to be pivotal moments that get to the core of the speaker's thoughts. Here, that line consists of the words "Am I alone? Spies." Yet again, Glück uses enjambment here to hint at the multiple, contradictory realities that preoccupy her speaker. By asking "Am I alone?" after complaining that her brother isn't present to comfort her, she seems to be plaintively using the word "alone" to mean "abandoned." She wants to know whether she can rely on her brother to stay by her side rather than leave her isolated. However, the word "Spies," included in this line because of Glück's choice to use enjambment, hints at another possible meaning to Gretel's question. She also wonders whether her father's home is as safe as everyone else seems to think. She feels that she is not alone because her enemies are still surveilling her, even though, as she states in the poem's first stanza, the people who wished her ill are supposedly dead. Thus Gretel's single question reveals two very different concerns—she worries about being lonely, and she also worries about being watched and harmed. Moreover, these worries are related. She now feels exposed to harm, but without her brother's support as she tries to survive.
As the stanza continues, Glück uses internal and slant rhyme, alliteration, and sibilant consonants to convey Gretel's fear. These elements only kick in in the latter half of the stanza, so that we end the poem as a whole with the impression of being surrounded by sinister, mysterious whispers. The stanza's fifth line contains the words "still" and "real, real," which don't precisely rhyme—but because they come close, they form a slant rhyme. Since the words are contained within a single line, they are also an instance of internal rhyme. The same can be said of the words "forest" and "earnest" in the poem's final line. Slant rhyme and internal rhyme are subtler and less songlike than typical end rhymes, so they allow Glück to strike a balance. They create a certain music, making the sounds of "Spies hissing" seem supernatural and abnormal. But they also don't make the poem feel childlike or scripted, which is important for this very grown-up and raw take on a fairytale. Meanwhile, the repetitive and sometimes alliterative use of "S," "F," and "L" sounds in these final lines, in words like "Spies," "still," and "forest," evoke whispering. We, like Gretel, feel that somebody is spying on us. Most tellingly, the name "Hansel" contains some of these sibilant sounds, suggesting that Gretel no longer trusts her brother—at least on the level of sound, he has become identified with the "spies" she fears.
