I think the incident with the poppet that Mary Warren made
for Elizabeth in Act II of this excellent drama shows the evil nature of Abigail and how
she is plotting to have Elizabeth killed through an accusation of witchcraft. It
definitely shows the premeditated nature of her attack against Elizabeth. Note the way
that she carefully planned it, either watching Mary Warren planting a needle in her
poppet or putting it in herself as she sat next to Mary Warren as she was making it. She
then used this as an opportunity for another demonstration of how she is being attacked
by witchery, as Cheever shares with the Proctors:
The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams,
sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris's house tonight, and without word nor warnin'
she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull
would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her
belly, he draws a needle out. And demandin' of her how she come to be so stabbed, she
testify it were your wife's familiar spirit pushed it
in.
Abigail is thus
cold-heartedly and cruelly willing to harm herself to succeed in her goal of disposing
of Elizabeth so that she can be with John Proctor. However, the intelligence with which
she has thought her plan through is rather chilling, to say the least, and indicates the
way in which the Salem Witch Trials were used as an excuse to settle old scores for so
many, not just the Putnams.
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