If I am asked " What outside forces were Helen Keller's antagonists in The Miracle Worker?"Am I being asked?

about forces such as blindness and deafness that made it hard for her to learn, or antagonist such as her father who didn't always allow Annie to do her work and the doctors who said she couldn't be taught???? This is for my summer reading homework. I can email the teacher, but I just didn't get what he meant about outside forces...