Othello
Shakespeare

In scene three of Act four, Desdemona foreshadows her own death unknowingly when she tells Emilia about a maid of her mother's who sang the "willow" song after her lover forsook her and died singing it. "That song tonight will not go from my mind. (IV iii 29-30)" Desdemona says that the song will not get out of her head. On one hand, the song is applicable to her life at the moment. Othello has called her a whore and no longer acts like he loves her. He even slapped her. Now that the song is going through her head, the next step would be for her to die. Then, when she starts singing the song it is even more powerful and the reader knows that something bad is going to happen to Desdemona. This lets the reader know that Othello will go through with killing Desdemona. She will die just like her mother's maid did.