In "Videotape" by Don DeLillo and "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" by Edgar Allen Poe, death is being portrayed in very different forms and, as a result, it has a very different effect on the audience. In "Videotape" the death that takes place is much more desensitized because of its manner of portrayal, while in "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" the death that occurs is a much more sensitive issue.  The way the stories are being mediated is in two different forms, we see in DeLillo's story that there is videotape that backs up the story that is being told, but in Poe's story there is a narrator there to tell you the facts about the story, but how can we know to trust this narrator.  This gives a different effect on the validity of each individual story.  All together, both stories have a similar main theme of death, but they differ by the sensitivity, mediation, and effects of death after it happens.

Death has very different effects on the audience in these two stories.  In "Videotape," the death scene is caught on videotape. This death can therefore be watched as many times as any viewers wants to watch it, " If you've seen the tape many times you know from the hand wave exactly when he will be hit" (DeLillio54). This proves the point that people just replay this video and know the exact moment when they death occurs. 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 often what draws the viewers in and keeps their attention on the movie. The medium through which this death is conveyed desensitizes viewers (and by extension, readers) because neither witnesses it, unlike the girl was in the car filming it. "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 passage suggests that death on tape has assimilated into being a part of our daily culture. We experience video clips, different media forms, and movies of people 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," the narrator portrays death as a much more sensitive issue.  Much attention is being placed on M. Valdemar as two doctors are present, P is present and Mr. L the one who takes notes is present.  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). Here 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 they 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 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 this narrator could be an unreliable source.  We don't know if everything that the narrator is saying is the complete truth because he will have more bias on the premise that he wants his clairvoyance skills to seem successful. He says, " When I had accomplished this, it was fully midnight and I requested the gentlemen present to examine M. Valdemar's conditions" (Poe 16).  Notice how he makes it about him accomplishing these feats; he emphasizes his greatness for achieving things. " I now feel that I have reached a point in this narrative at which every reader will be startled into positive disbelief." (Poe 17) He tries to convince us that what he is saying is really true, but maybe what he is about to say is unreliable. The narrator 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 story. This means there is no way to exaggerate any parts of the story because it has all been caught on tape, "It is unrelenting footage that rolls on and on. It has an aimless determination, a persistence that lives outside the subject matter, it is aimless, it is determined, and it is real" (DeLillo 53). This is important because this story is based solely off truth and not off opinion. DeLillo adds in the reactions of the man watching the tape representing all viewers, " You want your wife to see it because it is real this time, not fancy movie violence -- the realness is beneath the layers of cosmetic perception" (DeLillo 54). This depicts the unshakable realness that anyone who watches this feels and it told through the video.

Death in both these stories alters the lives of the people who 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 from 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. It also altered the lives of people who watched this video of a man being killed. It is a horrendous event that the public was exposed to visually. This is also true for "The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" because this was an experiment 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 was, "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. When someone dies it can either be a depressing moment or possibly one of joy depending on the circumstance.  From comparing both of the stories, we can see that mediation of a story can affect the way that is comes off. We have to question the validity of a story if one person only tells it. When there is concrete evidence of something happening like if it was caught on tape then it is undisputable. Both texts show that death is just unavoidable in life, sometimes we never expect it coming at all and other times we try to avoid it. Death is a very fickle matter and only time can tell what your individual death will be.
