There are forces that are not fully understood to the vast intelligence of the human nature, and these things frighten us. We can see them but some humans experience what is known as a sixth sense. This sixth sense, they say can see into the other world and into energies beyond comprehension. Such energies are categorized into a plethora of features such as ghosts, ghasts and ghouls. Yet even with all of these sections most of these "feelings" still remain a mystery to the populace. Videotape is a short story about the simple camera a child makes use of, and the repercussions of just a small piece of film. So much innocence is in this child, and yet the narrator still leaves an underlying twist of darkness to escape the reality of just a dreary day. This "background noise" is not as well touched upon as most subjects in this story and yet, whether or whether not the author meant for this to occur, it can still be felt. It is strange that one would think that, in a story about a child, that a river of physic sludge slowly is moving beneath it. Creeping and crawling out of every crevice in this novella just waiting to be explored. The short story "Videotape" by Don Dellilo shows an underlying tone, theme and all together slyness of unnatural forces beyond our control.

The first example of foreign energies in the text is shown when the narrator first shows the entrance of the man in the other car. Without giving a lengthy decription Delillo stillmanages to capture a fragment of the man. Delillo writes,

"You are looking into the mind of home video. It is innocent, it is aimless, it is determined, it is real. He is bald up the middle of his head, a nice guy in his forties whose whole life seems open to the handheld camera. But there is also an element of suspense. You keep on looking not because you know something is going to happen---of course you do know something is going to happen and you do look for that reason but you might also keep on looking if you came across this footage for the first time without knowing the out- come. There is a crude power operating here."(Delillo 15)

This quote emphasizes even in the very beginning that, to the naked eye, the tone seems to be more than we can just see. There may well be a "Crude power" working behind the camera focusing on this man. This seemingly unremarkable man who the reader know and understands nothing about, and yet the way the text uses the words crude, innocent and suspense shows that Delillo is trying to create an air of darkness. The readers basic understanding of this mans features shows him to be a regular person, even so there is an underlying sense that something is off about this guy that make the reader scared. Is it he fact that he looks normal but has a dark side not yet known to the reader? Or possibly the reader has no idea and just deems this man to be a "normal joe". Either way Delillo uses these appearances to make the tone that permeates throughout the story.

The next example in this text would be the underlying theme in this short story. The theme would be the repetitive use of color so specify what is occurring in the story. Delillo uses these colors as a sort of catalyst between the brain of the reader and the readers "third eye" or the faux relalistic image that the readers see while reading the novella. An example of this color scheme is seen here in this passage. Delillo writes, "There's something about the nature of the tape, the grain of the image, the sputtering black-and-white tones, the starkness-you think this is more real, truer to life than any- thing around you."(Delillo 16) Even in this small passage the author shows the theme of what he is trying to create. The gritty picture that he has painted with his words is now part of this family's afternoon. Even though this color is not inherently foreboding, the combination of this and the theme of this dark tale come together to make the perfect storm of background horror that this story entails. Even though nothing has happened yet in the text the reader still senses something approaching on the horizon of the bleak landscape the author has created.

A Third example of the otherworldly forces would be the slyness that Don Dilillo puts into his text. The point of this wasn't to show the reader the dark chilling past of the story to the reader but to make the reader search for it on there own, thus bringing the reader closer to the novella. This slyness is shown in the text here,"

Here it comes, all right. He is shot, head- shot, and the camera reacts, the child reacts- there is a jolting movement but she keeps on taping, there is a sympathetic response, a nerve response, her heart is beating faster but she keeps the camera trained on the subject as he slides into the door and even as you see him die you're thinking of the girl. At some level the girl has to be present here, watching what you're watching, unprepared-the girl is seeing this cold and you have to marvel at the fact that she keeps the tape rolling."

The slyness or the coy manner in which he rights is making you feel more for the little girl who doesn't know what she is doing instead of the man who was shot dead. Although it is true if this girl is real and not a figment in a story she would have many phycolgical problems now relating to this act that she just watched

To conclude this the author has used many background pieces to convert this piece into a thrilling and somewhat super natural tale. His use of tone created the chilling feeling before the fact, and the theme kept the reader interested with the material. The last piece in the puzzle of the short story, the slyness of the author slipping in these dark forces was the lynch pin that held the whole argument together. The short story "videotape" by Don Dilillo uses all of these factors to create a chilling background of what might be.
