Discuss how Miller creates dramatic tension in Act 4 of his play 'The Crucible'.

 Miller uses many different techniques and devices throughout the Act to bring it up to a climax and then causes disappointment by bringing it down to an anti-climax.  In this essay, I am going to discuss how Miller created dramatic tension by using different techniques throughout Act 4 of his play.Witchcraft started in Salem village when several young girls started to have convulsive fits.  Unable to see any physical cause for the symptoms and dreadful behaviour, physicians came to the conclusion that the girls were under the influence of Satan.  Prayer and community fasting took place within the village in an attempt to relieve the evil forces from the “witches”.  Three women were accused by the girls in an effort to have the pressure taken off them and they were later arrested.  Tituba, a slave, confessed to seeing the devil that appeared to her “sometimes like a hog and sometimes like a great dog”.  Over then next weeks, other people confessed and were accused by other people.  Some of the accused already had criminal records, including witchcraft, but others were faithful church goers.  After twenty people had been executed in the Salem witch hunt, a letter was written criticizing the witchcraft trials which had great impact on the Governor.  After this, no one was convicted.  Abigail’s apparent affair with John Proctor led to his eventual imprisonment and death.In the 1950s, a cold war broke out involving America and Russia.  There was a fear in America that communists were infiltrating the country and there was a threat to the constitution.  Therefore, Senator Joe McCarthy took the situation into his own hands and looked for communists and communist sympathisers and threw them out of the country.  This is thought to be the reason why Miller was inspired to write ‘The Crucible’. Whilst watching this play, contemporary audiences would feel anxious and frustrated as they would be able to relate to the witch hunt and the idea of ruining someone’s reputation.The setting of Act 4 creates a tense mood and atmosphere. It’s set at night which symbolises death and mysteriousness, whereas all of the other Acts are set in day time.  Miller has written it this way purposely to give a dramatic impact to the Act which works well as it gets the audience prepared for later events.  It is marked out as different to the previous Act giving it a sense of foreboding.