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Shakespeare repeats in the fifth act earlier situations and images to bring Coriolanus’s story full circle; he also creates reversals in the direction of action, the tenor of images, and the predominance of certain word-patterns to show the changes in that story. The two principles lend a conclusiveness to the fifth act. One of the two principles at work in the ending of Coriolanus is called “repetition.” Caius Martius rises to the first peak when, lord of the field, he receives the same Coriolanus and returns triumphant to Rome. Then he sinks back into wrangling with the tribunes and plebeians, finally falling into the degradation of banishment. In the repetition of this sequence, almost entirely played out in the fifth act, but from this pitch he once again falls, this time into the degradation of death. The dramatic technique of repetition, however, is not the only principle at work in the play’s conclusion, and if we examine the fifth act from a different vantage point, we shall perceive the lineament of another structure underlying the design of the mirrored pyramids. The other principle in the ending of the play, though not so dominantly as repetition, might be variously called reversal. The boomerang of reversal in the ending of Coriolanus is most obviously seen in its pattern of action. Looking at what happens in the play through the lens of reversal gives a different, larger structural image. That is, banishment of Coriolanus, the decision to join with Aufidius, and the return of Coriolanus. This broad pattern of action is reversal in its most general sense.