Sunday, April 22, 2012

How does Abigail manage to get Elizabeth arrested?

Elizabeth innocently accepts the gift of a little poppet or doll from Mary Warren. To most people, a doll is all it is—just a harmless toy. But in the increasingly hysterical, febrile atmosphere of Salem, it's turned into the equivalent of a voodoo doll. This is all Abigail Williams's doing, as we might expect. She sees the doll as a great opportunity to exact her revenge upon Elizabeth for breaking up her affair with John and firing her.
One night at dinner, Abby surreptitiously stabs herself with a needle and starts screaming hysterically, claiming that Elizabeth Proctor's evil spirit has pushed it into her flesh. It's a ridiculous story, of course, but things have gotten so out of hand that every accusation that Abby makes, no matter how patently absurd, is automatically believed by the authorities. A subsequent search of the Proctor residence uncovers the offending poppet, complete with a needle stuck in its belly. The truth of Abby's accusation appears to have been confirmed and Elizabeth is arrested on a charge of witchcraft.


In act two, Abigail manages to get Elizabeth Proctor arrested for attempted murder and witchcraft after she stabs herself in the stomach with a needle and blames her injury on Elizabeth's spirit. Earlier that day, Abigail noticed Mary Warren making a poppet, or doll, in court during her spare time. She also watched Mary Warren place the needle that she used into the poppet's stomach. Abigail knows that Mary Warren will be returning to the Proctor household later that night and seizes an opportunity to have Elizabeth arrested. Abigail ends up stabbing herself in the stomach with a needle and blames Elizabeth's spirit before instructing the clerks to search Elizabeth's home for a poppet. When Ezekiel Cheever arrives at John's home, he finds Mary Warren's poppet and discovers the needle in its stomach. Cheever and the other men assume that Elizabeth was using the poppet as some sort of voodoo doll to harm Abigail Williams and immediately arrest her for attempted murder and witchcraft.

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