In act 2, Mary Warren arrives at John Proctor's home after a long day of attending Salem's court, where she acts as an official and accuses innocent citizens of witchcraft alongside Abigail Williams. Mary Warren then gives Elizabeth Proctor a poppet that she made in court. Mary Warren explains to Elizabeth that she made the poppet to pass the time while she was sitting in court. Later on, Ezekiel Cheever arrives with a warrant for Elizabeth Proctor's arrest and mentions that he has orders to search John's home for a poppet. He ends up discovering the poppet that Mary Warren gave Elizabeth and finds a needle in the doll's stomach. When Reverend Hale questions Cheever about the significance of the needle, Cheever explains that Abigail Williams was stabbed in the stomach with a similar needle earlier that evening and accused Elizabeth Proctor of sending her spirit to push the needle into her stomach. Apparently, Abigail saw Mary Warren stick the needle into the poppet's stomach and knew that she could convince Salem's officials that Elizabeth was using the poppet as a voodoo doll to harm her.
In Act II of The Crucible, Mary gives Elizabeth the gift of a poppet, or doll. It's presented as being a perfectly harmless, generous gesture on Mary's part. However, the doll eventually takes on sinister significance later on in the play; it's cited as evidence in open court that Elizabeth Proctor's guilty of witchcraft. Abigail cynically uses a harmless gift as a means to destroy Elizabeth. The poppet has a needle sticking in it, and at dinner one night Abigail surreptitiously stabs herself in the stomach with a needle. She claims that Elizabeth has used the doll to do harm to her, using her evil powers to stab her.
It's a measure of how absolutely determined Abigail is to ruin Elizabeth that she's prepared to go to such desperate lengths. It's also a sign of just how completely hysterical the atmosphere in Salem has become that a simple little doll can take on such dark connotations.
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