This play is somehow similar to Francis Bacon’s pictures because of its power and intensity. It takes place in a dictatorship and revolves around the superintendent, Nicholas who gives the nearly dumb, intellectual prisoner Victor, a cruel treatment. Not only does he ridicule and humiliate the prisoner but he also displays his wife, as tortured and raped. Additionally he takes away their young son and leaves him to an uncertain destiny.
With an as yet unknown strength and indignation, Pinter sheds light on how high powered people in dictatorships use mental and physical torture, in order to scorn and degrade people.