How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph)
Quote #4
He steeled himself; the fear had left, and he felt a profound sense of promise, as though he were about to be repaid for all the things he'd suffered all his life. Trembling, he pressed the button. (42)
This moment represents the protagonist's attempted mastery over his fortune and fate.
Quote #5
"Didn't they know that although he controlled the wheel, it also controlled him, and unless he pressed the button forever and forever and ever it would stop, leaving him high and dry, dry and high on this hard high slippery hill and Laura dead?" (65)
If the wheel is a stand-in for fate (see "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory"), what might it mean that the wheel (fate) controls him? We might think about how a man is subject to his own fate, like it or not, and how the protagonist's control of the wheel suggests an element of free will.