Death. Whether it is slow, painful, and agonizing or quick and relatively painless, it shares similarities and differences beyond that of which we may initially interpret. The two short stories; "The Facts In the Case of M. Valdemar" by Edgar Allen Poe, and "Videotape" by Don DeLillo go about capturing the true essence of how death can strike in many different ways and ultimately as a result, carry vastly different meanings. Through each authors use of literary elements such as setting and characters, they craft similarities and differences between death that are easily visible on the surface while others are only discovered by digging deeper into the underlying meaning.

Death can come in many different ways and forms, instantaneous or prolonged and varying levels of pain. In Don DeLillo's "Videotape" for instance, it happens in the blink of an eye. One second passes and everything is fine, the next second passes and the partly bald man in the Dodge is dead: shot through the head. The instantaneous nature of the bald mans death expresses to us as readers just how valuable life by showing how quickly it can be taken from us. Contrasting DeLillo's use of instantaneous death, Poe prolongs his characters death throughout the entirety of the story. By doing this, we grasp an entirely different aspect that DeLillo skimmed entirely: pain and suffering. 
The overall meaning of a story is derived from its basic literary elements. For instance, changing a characters personality, age, or gender can dramatically affect the meaning of the story of a whole. Starting by analyzing each author's use of characters, we can begin to further interpret the differences between each stories use of death.

In DeLillo's "Videotape", there are three character that come to the forefront, the twelve year old girl videotaping, the man who gets shot in the dodge, and the man watching the girls recording of the death. What each character has in common is a sense of normalcy that almost comes to bore the reader. The girl is your average run of the mill child who loves to explore and learn which translates into her love of videotaping. The man being recorded is in his forties, balding, and is driving an un-described Dodge, which plays upon our image of the average American Joe-Schmo. The characters are so average that it lulls us into a sense of un-expectancy that is instantaneously taken away as the man in the Dodge is shot and killed in the blink of an eye. At the same time, the girls videotape is transformed from a curious exploration recording, into a flat out murder. The third character, the man watching the girls recording, is the epitome of how us as readers feel; shocked. DeLillo's tactic of shock and awe leads us to the very theme he is trying to express; life is valuable, and can be taken in a single instant no matter the outside circumstances.

Edgar Allen Poe's use of characters in "The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar" starkly contrasts that of DeLillo's. Poe's two main characters, Valdemar, and the narrator whose name we never fully learn are significantly more fleshed out, detailed and overall interesting than that of DeLillo's story. The narrator is a mesmerist (which in and of its self is an "interesting" job) who is enlisted to try and cure Valdemar of phthisis. In his attempt to cure Valdemar, the narrator puts him in a trance like state that results in a long, gruesome, supernatural-esk death. Poe's use of detail presented to his characters directly emulates his use of detail to describe Valdemar's horrific death, he turns into a "liquid mass of loathsome-of detestable putrescence", which shares a similar shock and awe technique to DeLillo. However, instead of a sudden surprise death like DeLillo, we are given a horrifically gruesome, long, drawn out death that dictates to us as readers the implausibility of trying to live forever.

Just like changing character details affects the overall theme of a story, changing the setting can also affect how the reader perceives the story as a whole. For instance, changing the amount of detail given to the setting can vastly affect what the reader knows about story indirectly. Just like medical practices weren't as advanced in the mid 1800s as they are now, changing the year, location, or even level of detail given to the story makes a world of difference in how a reader interprets a story.

To further drive home his theme that death can occur in almost any place or any time, DeLillo uses a very vague, ordinary setting; on a highway, in an average, everyday Dodge. Combining a ordinary setting with an ordinary death by gunshot gives us the "one in a million" death that shocks readers and leaves them with a sense that "I could die at any given moment". How many times have you heard of someone being shot while driving down the highway? Because if you're like me, this is probably the first.

Contrasting this, Poe details his setting to both a specific time and a specific city. As Poe specifically states, the story of Valdemar occurs in "Harlaem N.Y." during the mid 1800s. By living in a city, it grants Valdemar access to a larger amount of medical personnel as apposed to living in a smaller, rural town, which is shown by his two personal physicians and own mesmerist. At the same time, being able to afford living in the city along furthers the contrast between the short stories by adding detail. Not only this, but given that the events take place during the mid 1800s provides us with the knowledge that medical practices were not well developed. Add these setting details with the given situation and the result is a highly detailed in comparison death scene that leaves a completely different message than that of DeLillo. Now matter how complex the scenario is, how much help you have, or how advanced the medical practices are for the given time period, you cannot escape death's cold grasp.

In the literary world, death has been discussed numerous times in many different lights. Poe and DeLillo both go about discussing death in a way that is sudden and as a result shocks the reader, however, by using different literary elements they lead the reader to make differing realizations about how death can be viewed. DeLillo creates a sense of generalness that results in a shocking death whereas Poe fills his reader with detail in a horrifyingly gruesome death that makes the reader utterly sick to his or her stomach. Despite the differences, both short stories provide unique themes relating to viewpoints regarding death that require digging deeper to fully comprehend.
