Avoid Extremes

In both How I Learned to Drive and The Mineola Twins, Paula Vogel warns us against adhering to extremes in our lives. Yet, at the same time Vogel doesn’t represent any characters that don’t live their lives in this way. As a result, there is no definite protagonist or antagonist. One could argue that in How I Learned to Drive Peck is the antagonist, but as the play ends, we are left pitying Peck instead of rejoicing over his downfall. This is Vogel’s plan: to have us doubt our moral system. What is really evil and what is good?