In the following essay, the author discusses Pinter's use of the power of love, the opposite of love, and language in portraying questions of human nature and brutality in Mountain Language.

After One for the Road there might seem little more to say about the brutalities of torture. But Mountain Language, which continues to explore the conflict between Eros and Thanatos, offers further insights into the causes for such brutality and strengthens insights into further links between love and violence. Love or its opposite, fractally referenced and infused in each moment, drives the play's conflict. Love, devalued and deployed in brutal language and acts of the torturers as one weapon in the arsenal to destroy, is also a bond which can sustain the tortured and their families. Inspired by the plight of the Kurds who were forbidden to speak their language, Mountain Language is the bleakest, most...