Tom is a frustrated poet stuck working in a warehouse to support his mother and sister. He feels suffocated by his family's financial reliance on him and his mother's constant demands, often escaping to the movies or the fire escape to cope with his dissatisfaction. Driven by a desperate need for adventure, he dreams of leaving his responsibilities behind to travel the world.

Laura is Tom's painfully shy older sister who suffers from a physical disability that leaves her with a slight limp. Her intense social anxiety prevents her from functioning in the outside world, leading her to secretly drop out of her typing class at the business college. She spends her days listening to old records and meticulously caring for her collection of miniature glass animals.

Amanda is an aging Southern belle who struggles to accept the grim reality of her impoverished life in a tenement apartment. She frequently retreats into idealized memories of her youth when she received seventeen gentlemen callers on a single Sunday. Desperate to secure her children's futures, she relentlessly pushes Tom to advance his career and schemes to find Laura a suitable husband.

Jim is an ordinary young man who works alongside Tom at the warehouse. Once a standout high school athlete and performer destined for greatness, his life has stalled over the past six years. He maintains a cheerful optimism and studies public speaking and radio engineering to advance his career, bringing a dose of grounded reality into the subjective world of the Wingfields.

Mr. Wingfield is the absent patriarch of the family who worked for a telephone company before leaving his wife and children. He never physically appears in the story, but his portrait constantly looms over the apartment. His successful escape from family responsibility serves as a silent warning to Amanda and a source of inspiration for Tom.