How Does Miller Create Interest in Margaret, Gellberg and Hyman?

As Arthur Miller leads his characters down a hall of mirrors, each reflection uniquely distorted, confined in its own corner, we watch Miller carefully toy with identities, slowly removing the illusion on the surface to reveal greater shattered worlds in ‘Broken Glass’. Where Philip Gellberg’s reserved persona sparks up with defence mechanisms employed and cemented over the years, Dr Harry Hyman’s philandering touch underlies his cool and professional manner. His breezily tolerant wife, Margaret Hyman, sums up one theme of acceptance in this overwhelmingly moving play when she says of life that "you draw your cards face down, you turn them over and you do your best with the hand you've got".
Philip Gellberg, Miller's first and foremost complicated character, draws all our attention in the opening scene with his 'slender, intense' figure dominating the stage as his 'perfect stillness' creates an icy subdued aura to be invaded by energetic Margret's animated questions. We are introduced to a prudish man whose first line is described as a ‘faint reprimand’, Miller preparing the audience to almost immediately have a certain distaste for his impatience and arrogance. Not only is he offended by the lateness of Dr Hyman, being Philip Gellberg “the only Jew [to have] ever worked for Brooklyn Guarantee in their whole history”, but has no time nor respect for small talk – especially with a woman. His misogynistic views continuously shine through, referring to his wife, Sylvia, as able to run the Federal Reserve - if only she “was a man”.   Here, a key element in the ruin of both his relationship and the love Sylvia has for him becomes evident, and has been for the past twenty years of his life. Miller initiates Hyman’s initial sexual reference with the stage directions of ‘grinning familiarly’, connoting an attempt to ease Philip into comfortable conversation with a masculine connection. A flush of colour is brought to Philip’s face, easily the first in many years as he...