Repetition and Mirror Images in Othello Among the techniques Shakespeare uses in his plays to achieve dramatic and thematic effects is the leitmotif. He chooses an image, or an idea and uses it throughout a play to emphasize his insights. In King Lear, Shakespeare makes repeated reference to eyes and blindness. In Macbeth, he makes repeated reference to blood. In Othello, a play in which Shakespeare is addressing the question of honesty and duplicity, he uses repetition and mirror image as a leitmotif.
Although it is tempting to frame Shakespeare's Othello as a play about jealousy, much as one might characterize Hamlet as a play about indecision and Macbeth as a play about ambition, such a characterization would be, if not misguided, at least misleading. It is not merely a play about one man's fear that his wife is unfaithful. Jealousy, while it is a predominant emotion in the text, is better thought of as an effect. The play is not so much about jealousy as it is about the conflict between words and thought, between action and purpose, between disbelief and conviction. Jealousy drives Othello to murder his wife Desdemona, but Othello's errant distrust of her, and his errant trust of his aide Iago leads to his jealousy. This theme of disbelief and attempted conviction is exploited to great effect by Shakespeare's use of repetition and mirror imagery throughout the play. He uses repetition in a technical sense, repeating words, phrases and images. He juxtaposes characters against each other, balancing each virtue with a corresponding vice. He also uses mirror images in a thematic sense, giving the same set of circumstances and motivation to corresponding sets of characters. Both Othello and Iago suffer from jealousy. Several sets of characters attempt to convince each other of their truthfulness. This use of repetition in many forms serves to project Shakespeare's theme to the play-goer. Far from being simply a mora...