In the short story "Videotape," in which a little girl films a man being shot and killed while driving down the highway, Don DeLillo instills a sense of attachment to the story in the reader. He does this by using a simple and direct style and repetition while making use of a second person point of view to put readers in a position in which they feel as though they are experiencing the events as they unfold. These two things coupled with the suspenseful flow that almost mimics the way in which the video in the story is described by DeLillo allow the reader to feel as though they are experiencing the events of "Videotape" for themselves.

DeLillo describes the tone or flow of the videotape as "unrelenting footage that roles on;" and as a-"persistence that lives outside the subject matter," and "you keep on looking because you know something is going to happen". (53) All of these illustrate the way in which one would describe how DeLillo's story would be read, giving the reader a sense that they are almost watching the video themselves. When DeLillo gives the reader a narration of the video, he spends a lot of time on the details of the video, he explains it starts with "a man in a sport shirt at the wheel of his car." He continues to explain how the video "has a jostled nonevent-ness that marks the family product;" although "the man in this case is not a member of the family but a stranger in a car, a random figure, someone who has happened along in the slow lane." DeLillo then goes on to describe "a man in his forties wearing a pale shirt open at the throat,"  "[h]e is bald up the middle of his head, a nice guy in his forties whose whole life seems open the handheld camera." DeLillo also describes the car the man is driving and the random and amateurish nature of the video. As well as how the making of the film is almost like a game to the little girl. Then DeLillo finally describes the death to the reader  By using vivid depictions of the events in the video, DeLillo is better able to affect the feelings of the reader or make the story a little more personal in nature.

The personal and simplistic nature of "Videotape" makes the story very reader-friendly, when the story is read one doesn't read a passage and then sit back and wonder what was just read. Everything read is considerably easy to comprehend and the story doesn't put you to sleep. By doing this DeLillo allows the reader to have a much easier time connecting to the story and ultimately putting yourself within in the story; which seems to be his ultimate goal. DeLillo wants the reader feel as though they are in some way apart of this event, he wants you to feel the way the husband must have his wife see the man get shot and he wants feel the way the husband is sorrowed about the child witnessing the shooting than the actual man who was shot. DeLillo accomplishes this by explaining things that most people can relate to or have experienced. For example most people have experienced that moment when a family member has pulled out the camera on vacation or a holiday, most people have seen something on the internet that they will forever wish they could un-see, but still manage to show it to as many that will watch or view at it, "practically forcing your wife to watch," as soon as possible without really knowing why, or maybe as sense of "I'm going to ruin your day out of spite." (54)  Another way in which DeLillo allows the reader to feel as though they are a part of the story is with the usage of the word you. This gives the story a more conversational feel almost as though the DeLillo is talking to the reader instead of simply telling a story that would be directed towards a larger audience. You makes the story personal and personal makes the story easy to relate to and have feelings about. This would probably explain why DeLillo is so repetitive with his usage of the word you.

DeLillo uses repetitiveness through the story "Videotape" in more than one way, he repeats words fairly often throughout the story, but he also makes use of repetition sentence structure. DeLillo frequently repeats 3 words throughout his story, these words are you, she, and it. The purpose DeLillo has for repeating these words is that they are conversational, when people describe events to their friends or to their wife or mom these are the words that are used. Very few people would constantly state a name of a person or the name of an object when describing an event while talking to another person, so DeLillo uses these words to give his story a conversational tone. The usage of repetitive sentence structure is also a way in which DeLillo gives the story a conversational feel to the story, most of his sentences don't have too much variation in size and structure. An example of the way in which DeLillo makes use of repetitive sentence structure would be the three sentences; "You don't usually call your wife over to the TV set. She has her programs, you have yours. But there's a certain urgency here. You want her to see how it looks." Another purpose DeLillo has for his usage of repetitiveness is to poke at the soft spot that most people have for children. He does so by often making use of the words child and kid, by doing this the focus is not put on the guy who is shot, but rather the child who is shooting the video and the reader is compelled to feel more sorrow for the child who may be scared by the graphic image of a man being killed instead of the man who had his life taken from him. 

DeLillo does many makes use of many different techniques to allow the reader to have a personal connection to the story or allow the reader to feel as though they could even live through the events experienced by at least one of the characters he portrays in this story in their everyday life and giving himself the ability to dictate exactly what he wants the readers to feel when reading the story. By doing it allows him to have more success when he is trying to get a point across to his audience.


