Summary
The speaker starts the stanza by stating that nobody seems to remember the past, not even her brother. She addresses her brother, telling him that on summer afternoons he looks at her as though he plans to abandon her, like nothing has happened to them. But that isn't true, Gretel reminds him, because she killed the witch to save him. Now, she continues to see menacing-looking trees and the flames inside the witch's oven.
Analysis
When Gretel tells her brother "summer afternoons you look at me as though/you meant to leave," we can interpret this as meaning that, safe at their father's house, she sometimes feels as if her brother wants to abandon her. But the line has a series of other, potential cryptic meanings, especially when we consider that Glück has allowed the words "you meant to leave" to sit on a line of their own, as a sentence unto itself as well as the conclusion of a longer sentence. This phrase, "you meant to leave," seems to refer not to the present but to the past. It suggests that, even in their moments of mutual fear, Gretel's brother wanted to abandon her (in most versions of the fairytale, Hansel is imprisoned and Gretel frees him, so this interpretation hints that Hansel would not have done the same if their roles were reversed). This reference to imbalance and the unequal response of the two siblings plays into the poem's broader commentary on gender. Gretel seems to have experienced a certain feeling of kinship with the women in her life, even while treated badly by them. Now, with only her father and brother, she feels lonely. Furthermore, Glück suggests that Gretel's gender may play a role in her feelings of responsibility towards her brother. Hansel, meanwhile, seems more willing (or perhaps more able) to strike out on his own, even at his sister's expense.
Glück's use of figurative language emerges in full force in this stanza, but is limited to its final lines. The descriptive language in the early part of the stanza, which takes place in the present, is general and abstract—"summer afternoons." But, because Gretel's memories of the past feel more real and vivid to her than her experience of the present, the descriptions of her sojourn in the woods are also more vivid. Glück describes the trees as "armed firs," the metaphor making them sound threatening, but also hearkening back to the earlier phrase "women's arms," as if they are an extension of the women Gretel has known. Next, Glück describes the flames in the witch's oven as "spires," evoking a church. In doing so, she subtly recalls the first stanza's phrase "God rewards," suggesting that the witch's death was a divine punishment—or even that Gretel, in that moment, had a godlike power. Meanwhile, by using the image of cathedral spires, Glück makes the scene seem big, momentous, and powerful—as formidable as it is inside of Gretel's head.
