The Willow Song - Othello Acts 4 and 5

After reading William Shakespeare’s Othello, there was a particular detail that I recognized to carry a great deal of importance within the last two acts. In Act 4 of Othello, Desdemona is speaking to her servant Emilia about a song she knows. However, I did not recognize that this song foreshadowed future events in the plot until I finished the play. Desdemona states that her own mother’s maid, in love with a mad man, knew this song, and “it expressed her fortune and she died singing it,” (Shakespeare, 1443). This description is interesting, because many of the statements made compare to Emilia’s situation. Like the woman in Desdemona’s story, Emilia is a servant, of Desdemona to be exact. Furthermore, she is married to Iago. While it is not common knowledge to the characters until the conclusion of the play, the reader is aware that Iago is a mad man. However, when this is finally realized, it is too late to change the outcome of Desdemona’s foreshadowing tale. Emilia’s refusal to accept her husband’s treachery results in his stabbing of her. As is discovered in Act 5, Emilia dies singing the song Desdemona had taught her about, in accordance to the story Desdemona told about her mother’s servant. Through this simple interaction between two characters, Shakespeare successfully foreshadows Emilia’s fate.