Tennesse Williams's play, "The Glass Menagerie" is an Expressionistic play, not a tragedy. As such it involves conflict with authority, heightened dialogue that reveals the suffering and spiritual awakening of its characters, and exaggerated scenes.
In "The Glass Menagerie" there are no noble characters who make tragic mistakes. Williams, instead, portrays a most ignoble character, Tom, who is too weak to change the problematic life he has in any way but to argue with his mother, dodge his job, and flee. He and his sister and mother live an illusionary existence. Amanda, the mother, resides all too often in a romanticized past in which she was a Southern belle with "gentlemen callers." The sister Laura is crippled both physically and mentally, spending her days with glass animals. When the gentleman caller, Jim, does give her some self-confidence and the spiritual awakening requisite in Expressionism. However, with Tom's abandonment, how she and her mother will survive is under question.
While a case for tragedy can be made for a modern play such as Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" as Willy Loman was at one time a successful salesman, in "The Glass Menager," there seems no original greatness in any of the three characters that would allow a fall of tragic proportions.
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