There is a chance quality in every encounter. The short story "Videotape", by Don DeLillo, exposes how serious that chance quality can be. The story utilizes several creative writing styles in order to portray a somewhat twisted story about a little girl accidentally videotaping a man being shot and killed while driving his car. The meaning and true point behind this story is that nothing can be predicted and that all things happen because of "forces beyond your control" (DeLillo, 61). Throughout the story exact phrases, structure, and ideas are repeated in order to show that nothing can be predicted. An ominous mood is created in the beginning of the story through ways of foreshadowing and somber diction. The contrasting ideas of life and death are juxtaposed in the story in order to further prove the aspect of unpredictability in life. The story explores the constant aspect of chance and unpredictability by utilizing the juxtaposition of the contrasting themes of life and death.

This story exposes to its readers the "chance quality" (DeLillo, 61), in every encounter. There are "lines of intersection that cut through history and logic and every reasonable layer of human expectation" (DeLillo, 61), which means that due to the chance factor and the forces beyond human control, no matter how much one expects something to happen there is always a possibility that it will not happen. The main object of this story is a videotape, this videotape is referenced repeatedly throughout the story. In the videotape an ordinary man is driving a car and waves at the camera recording him and the young girl holding the camera. As the video progresses the man is shot in the head by a drive-by shooter in the adjacent lane. Surely when the average American man gets in the car to go somewhere he does not expect to be shot in the head and killed, at least not while commuting. This video that is reoccurring throughout the entire story is the essence of what the main point of this piece is, which is to show that there is always the aspect of chance. Life and death are two completely opposite subjects but yet are portrayed side by side throughout the story in order to further present to the audience the aspect of chance. The story opens with a young innocent girl frivolously videotaping a man driving a car. The last thing on a reader's mind is the idea of death, but as the story goes on the man is shot in the head and killed.The literary technique of repetition is utilized throughout the story in order to draw the audience in and also in order to reiterate ideas that were meant to be noticed by the audience. The first use of repetition is noticed by the phrase "the car approaches briefly, then falls back" (DeLillo, 60), which is then repeated on the next page, "it approaches briefly, then falls back" (DeLillo, 61). When first stated that the car approaches and then falls back the context of the videotape has not yet been explained, so the reader assumes that the driver of the car is alive in the video when the car approaches and falls back. Later when it is repeated that the car approaches and then falls back it is in a much different, harsher context, "Now here is where he gets it. You see him jolted then he seizes up and falls toward the door It approaches briefly, then falls back" (DeLillo, 61), in this context the man driving the car has just been shot in the head and died instantly. By utilizing repetition of exact phrases the main point of the story that nothing can be predicted is further proven by the contrast between life and death. In the first instance of the repeated phrase the man was perceived to be alive, this phrase was contrasted with the latter of the two repeated phrases in which the man was perceived to be dead. 

Foreshadowing is portrayed in the beginning of the story by using a double entendre in order to point to a dark plot twist later on in the story. Twice in the story, before it is known to the audience that the man in the video is shot, the ideas of life and death are juxtaposed using a foreshadowing double entendre in the word "shoot". This word is first used when referring to children videotaping things, "[children] will shoot you sitting on the pot if they can manage a suitable vantage" (DeLillo, 60), meaning that a child would film a person using the restroom. A gun has the negative connotation of death, rarely is a gun thought of without death first coming to mind. Young children are the essence of the innocence of life, they have done no wrong and do not know what wrong is. The word "shoot" has a negative connotation, that negative connotation is lessened when stating that a young child is "shooting" something with a video camera. Later in the story a man is being innocently "shot" by a young girl with a video camera, the essence of the innocence of life, and then the man proceeds to be "shot" by a person with a gun, which has the negative connotation of death. The ideas of life and death are juxtaposed through the word "shoot" by one use of the word having a very innocent meaning and the other use of the word having a very harmful meaning. When the word is first introduced the reader would never connect "shoot" with a gun but as the story goes on the word unexpectedly turns from filming to killing, further adding to the aspect of chance and unpredictability.

This story juxtaposes two completely opposite ideas throughout in order to further the main point of unpredictability. This story contrasts two opposite ideas through repetition of structure, words, and phrases. The story also utilizes foreshadowing and somber diction in order to create an ominous mood early on. The ideas contrasted are the innocence of a child and the brutality of death. When thinking of the innocence of a young curious girl who loves life because life is all she has ever known, the last place that one's mind wanders is the painfully brutal idea of not only death but murder, one's life taken away by another life. This is the ultimate way of stating that there is no way to predict anything in life, by comparing side by side, an innocent new life and a brutal end to another.

