Arthur Miller Quotes

The Crucible, Act 1. Ann Putnam uses metaphorical language to describe what she believes to be the web of hidden plots and powers manipulating the fates of people in Salem. Malevolent forces and not God’s work, she believes, are behind her losing seven babies and her daughter and Betty Parris falling ill. She earlier admitted to asking Tituba to communicate with her dead babies to find out who murdered them. Mrs. Putnam’s paranoid idea about people in league with the Devil foreshadows the mass hysteria that will grip the panicked Putitans of Salem and fuel the Salem witch trials. "Wheels within wheels" is also an allusion to what the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel said in the Book of Ezekiel. In a spectacular vision Ezekiel saw four angels, each with four wings and four faces. There were four wheels beside the angels sparkling like diamonds in the sun, each with another wheel inside it – "wheels within wheels." Ezekiel was one of the Jews exiled to Babylon after the fall of his city of Jerusalem. His vision was a sign that God had not abandoned him or his people.