A word, phrase or image that returns several times throughout the work, tied to a character or an idea, and gaining meaning with each return.
In Hamlet
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
The image of “rotten” runs through the play: the abandoned garden, the poison that clots the blood, the body devoured by worms. Each appearance ties the physical illness to the moral deviation of the realm, and Marcellus’s line is the one that says aloud, about all of Denmark, what the other images show.
Act I: The Ghost and the order of revenge, Marcellus
How now? A rat?
Act III: The Mousetrap and the death of Polonius, Hamlet
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