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 draw 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.
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 2. Abigail launches her diabolical plan to get vengeance on Elizabeth for putting her out on the street. Ezekiel Cheever gives a graphic account of how Abby is stabbed in the belly with a needle while at dinner in Parris’s house. Abby blames Elizabeth Proctor’s spirit for pushing the needle in. Cheever uses a vivid animal simile to describe the horror of the attack, comparing Abby to a struck beast. Of course Abigail is lying, having stabbed herself so she could accuse Elizabeth of witchcraft. Earlier that day in court Abby saw Mary Warren make a poppet doll and stick a needle in it, and the poppet is now in Elizabeth’s house. Abigail seizes the opportunity provided by the poppet to frame Elizabeth.
