In the short story "Videotape" by Don DeLillo and in the short story "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" by Edgar Allen Poe, the occurrence of death is being portrayed, but the way the way it is presented comes in very different forms. In both stories the deaths that take place have very different effects on the audience. In "Videotape" the death that takes place is more desensitized, while in "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" the death that occurs is a much more sensitive issue.  The way the story is being mediated is in two different forms, which also gives a different effect on the validity of each individual story.  These two stories also portray how death can completely alter lives in the process of it occurring.

Death sends very different effects on the audience in these two pieces of writing. As we see in "Videotape" the whole scene of the death that is occurring is caught on videotape. This death can therefore be watched as many times as any viewers wants to watch it. It almost makes it seem less detrimental because it's like watching a movie. So many movies these days have death scenes in them; it is kind of what draws the viewers in and keeps their attention on the movie. The medium that this death occurrence is being viewed just makes it more desensitized because it is not being witnessed first hand by anyone else but the people that were in the car. "This crime is designed for random taping and immediate playing. You sit there and wonder if this kind of crime became more possible when the means of taping and playing an event  -- playing it immediately after the taping -- became part of the culture,"(DeLillo 55) this reflects the idea that this whole idea of death on tape has just assimilated into being a part of our daily culture. We experience video clips, different media forms, and movies of people just dying or getting horribly injured, but it is almost okay because we are just used to coming across things like this.

In "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" death is portrayed as a much more sensitive issue.  M.Valdemar is trying to avoid his death that is approaching quickly and it is something he is not ready to face. Once hypnotized everyone intently watches over him to see what is going to happen.  The urgency to fight for life or succumb to his death is felt when he says, "For God's sake!  -- quick! -- quick! -- put me to sleep -- or, quick! -- waken me! -- quick! -- I say to you that I am dead," (Poe 19) we get the sense that this is causing such distress on M.Valdemar and he either needs to die or be awoken from his mesmeric trance.  The sense of urgency and importance of death is much more prominent in this story. The doctors surrounding M. Valdemar are very alert to what is happening to him and keep constant surveillance on how he is doing.  It also expresses the lengths some people will go to try to live as long as they possibly can because the fear the idea of not living anymore.  The final death of him is depicted very dramatically also, "...his whole frame at once -- within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk -- crumbled absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome -- of detestable putrescence," (Poe 19) the emphasis on the final moments before he dies just expresses how sensitive it is when a soul passes away.

The mediation of the stories revolving around death takes on two different forms. We see in "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" that the person who has put Valdemar into this mesmeric state is telling the story. The importance of this is that the person telling the story could be an unreliable source.  We don't know if everything that the narrator is saying is the complete truth. But by the way the story is told directly from the narrator, the death seems much more in the moment. This relates the earlier idea that this short story makes death a more sensitive issue, while in "Videotape" it is much more desensitized. He is just describing the facts of the story that he finds the most pertinent, but we could be missing certain pieces of the story without knowing it.

This is different in the story "Videotape" because even thought there is a person telling a story; there is a tape that also tells the whole story. This means there is no way to exaggerate any parts of the story because it has all been caught on tape. This is important because this story is based solely off truth and not off opinion.

Death in both these stories end up altering the lives of the people who are there to witness it.  In "Videotape" the young girls life has completely changed because she is no longer the young innocent child she used to be, "She wandered into it. The girl got lost and wandered clear-eyed into horror. This is a children's story about straying too far form home," (DeLillo 54). The young girl can no longer go on living her young childhood as an innocent child because of the horrible things she saw. This is also true for "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" also because this was an experimentation that was being run on Valdemar to test the powers of mesmerism on someone who is on the brink of death.  The person who was experimenting on M.Valdemar was not expecting to be as disturbed as he once from this experiment, "I was thoroughly unnerved, and for an instant remained undecided what to do," (Poe 19) this altered his confidence in this experiment because he wasn't sure what he should do. An experience like this most likely will affect his future when dealing with other situations like this.

The stories "Videotape" and "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" focus their attention on the theme of death. The way they approach death is in two very different ways. When someone dies it can either be a depressing moment or possibly one of joy. In the story "Videotape" the idea of death is a much more desensitized event because the medium on which the death is recorded allows any viewer to watch it as if it were no big deal. Anyone could watch this death again and again and every time it seems less detrimental because it doesn't seem real. In "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" death is displayed as a much more sensitive issue. M.Valdemar does anything he can to avoid his death, but in the end its unavoidable. The final moments of his life are dramatically depicted at the end to emphasis the importance of his death. Another important thing about these stories are that they both are mediated in different forms.  The videotape telling the story versus a person telling the story gives two very different effects.
