Character Analysis
Margaret Wilhelm is Tommy Wilhelm's wife. Although the two have been separated for four years, they aren't legally divorced. As the novel's narrator tells us, Margaret "would regularly agree to divorce him, and then think things over again and set new and more difficult conditions" (2.23). To Wilhelm, she's nothing but a money-hungry shrew that's out to get him.
Most of what we learn about Margaret comes through Wilhelm, which means that we need to take his prejudices into account. Even Dr. Adler is forced to remind his son sometimes that his perspective is only his side of things (3.64).
In his darker moments, Wilhelm thinks to himself:
Didn't Margaret know that he was at the end of his rope? Of course. Her instinct told her that this was her opportunity, and she was giving him the works. (2.27)
To his father, he says:
[S]he hates me. I feel that she's strangling me. I can't catch my breath. She just has fixed on herself to kill me. She can do it at a long distance. One of these days I'll be struck down by suffocation or apoplexy because of her. I just can't catch my breath. (3.54)
Whatever Wilhelm might think or say about Margaret, it's important to keep in mind that this is a woman whose husband has cheated on her and planned to divorce and leave her with two young children to raise on her own. Wilhelm may think that Margaret is trying to kill him, but a more objective observer might feel that she's just making sure that she gets what's hers.