Although nobody ever sees the unexpected coming, it is bound to happen, that's usually how the world works. The story, "Videotape" is suspenseful, and in every suspenseful movie or book something unexpected happens. The underlying theme of "Videotape" is to expect the unexpected. "Videotape" is a mirroring story about life. Just like life, in the story, everything seemed to be normal and going well, and all of a sudden things went wrong and there was a tragedy.

When we are recording or watching any video we learn to see things twice; maybe it be that we can re-watch it or maybe that we can focus on every detail, regardless, we see things differently, we have a different perspective. Perspective has a great impact on what we see coming. A great quote in the story states, "You know how kids get involved, how the camera shows them that every subject is potentially charged, a million things they never see with the unaided eye" (DeLillo 59). In the story, the twelve-year-old girl targeted the man. She saw the potential that recording him had. Only she could see it because of where she was, which was behind the camera. If it had been her without a camera, she probably would have not even noticed the man at all, but if she had noticed him, it would have been merely a glance back and nothing else. But because she had the video camera, she kept it on the man, feeling as if she was accomplishing something great. She had that feeling a kid in charge of the video camera for the first time gets. She got that feeling of any and every subject being 'potentially charged' or that they are the most interesting thing in front of the lens at that moment, and perhaps she was expecting something intriguing to happen, so she kept recording.

The twelve-year-old girl wanted something so interesting to happen, that she recorded long enough to catch a homicide on video. "Videotape" has two quotes that support this claim, one states, "It is unrelenting footage that rolls on and on" (DeLillo 60). 'On and on' makes it seem as if the videotape has been rolling for a good twenty to thirty minutes. The second one states, "The tape has been running forever and now the thing is finally going to happen and you want her to be here when he's shot" (DeLillo 61). The narrator using the word 'forever' verifies that the tape had not been rolling for only three or five minutes, but for quite a while and long enough for the wife to get up and stop watching it.  The girl did not have to keep the video camera rolling, she could have stopped it at any moment. It is as if she had seen too many action or horror films where something always happens when you least expect it. The video was long and suspenseful, something the husband could not seem to stop himself from watching.

Suspenseful readings and movies makes the audience want to keep watching or reading. The story speaks directly to the readers and says, "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 outcome" (DeLillo 60). This is the epitome of expecting the unexpected. Nobody comes across a video on the internet and watches it, to find out it has no outcome.  There is always an outcome to everything, it is simply cause and effect. It was only by chance that this outcome turned out to be a rare catch by a twelve-year-old girl. It becomes quite clear to see that something was going to happen.

Imagery helps the readers picture what is happening in the story, it becomes like a movie. DeLillo uses enough imagery to help the reader paint a picture of everything that is happening. The man that was driving was described on a couple different occasions. Some quotes stand out, one being, "It shows a man in a sport shirt at the wheel of his car" (DeLillo 60). This description could quite honestly fit a lot of the male population. Go out to get some groceries and count the amount of guys seen on the road that could fit that description. Another one says, "He is bald up the middle of his head, a nice guy in his forties whose whole life seems open to the handheld camera" (DeLillo 60). These quotes that are describing the man are exaggerating the fact that the guy that was killed was nothing more than ordinary. The author is really trying to emphasize how much like anyone else this man was. The fact that he was just like anyone else, unnoticed and ordinary, makes what happened to him so much more unexpected.

The man was not the only one who had experienced something he had not seen coming happen to him, though. Unfortunately for the twelve-year-old girl, she had to witness something gruesome and terrifying that day. It is something she will never be able to get rid of, it was a life changing experience. Her reaction shows, how terrified she actually was. The story says, "The way the camera reacts to the gunshot -- a startle reaction that brings pity and terror into the frame, the girl's own shock, the girl's identification with the victim" (DeLillo 62). The girl had no idea what she was going to capture on her family's video camera. 

Although the characters did not expect it, the readers did. DeLillo purposely used third person point of view, giving the readers an outside perspective. It finally gives the readers a chance to see the unexpected coming, and allows them to be the one to watch it go down, and shows the reader the whole picture. Had DeLillo used first person from the girl's point of view the whole story would be different. The readers would know everything the girl was thinking and what she saw and how she felt. Their perspective of the story would change drastically, the theme, the mood, and the tone would all change. In order for the theme to remain the same the mood would also have to, because suspense forces you to believe that the least expected is going to happen. 

Expecting the unexpected is not normal for people. Days start to become routines and everything is already expected. We think because we are ordinary, nothing bad is bound to happen to us. We do not anticipate something horrible or out of the ordinary to happen to us, ever, but it does because we can't control everything. DeLillo's story is clearly based off of the one thing nobody is exempted from, that being, the unexpected happening and how we should always see it coming.  

