     The short story "Videotape," written by Don DeLillo, is about a young girl who innocently records a man driving, who is then murdered. A man viewing the footage broadcasted by his local news stations narrates it. The second person point of view includes the reader to be apart of what is happening. The effect of videotapes on reality and the obsession it has created in modern culture is better understood with DeLillo's use of repetition, sentence structure, and imagery captures the reader. 

     Video cameras are used as a means of capturing memorable moments, whether it is a family gathering or possibly a child's first steps. One's reality can alter the way in which video footage is perceived; it is two worlds whose collision is based on the spectator. The way in which the footage is viewed is based on the viewer and the realities that define their perception, as it is "a persistence that lives outside the subject matter"(DeLillo 60). As DeLillo writes, "You are looking into the mind of home video. It is innocent, it is aimless, it is determined, it is real" the home video is presumed to lack a consciousness and solely have a fixed purpose (60). The repetition of  "it is" categorizes the video footage as an inanimate thing. However, as the story progresses it is evident that video footage has also altered reality. The sentence structure helps the audience to understand when the switch of roles occurs. Instead of "it is", which is a reference to the videotape, a different perspective is presented when the view is no longer from outside of this object. "The world is lurking in the camera, already framed, waiting for the boy or girl who will come along and take up the device, learn the instrument, shooting "(DeLillo 60). A world now seems to exist within this inanimate object. The word lurking creates a creepy feeling for the reader and gives the video footage a sort of power, or intention other than to just be. The newfound familiarity of video cameras and their ability to essentially see things twice provides leverage to this inanimate object. 

     Obsession is a common concept throughout this story. With technology becoming a more common part of reality, it is not just reality affecting one's perception of videotapes. The ability of a camcorder to record and replay allows things to be perceived more than once. A young girl in the back seat of her family car captures a murder on video. Up until the point of the gunshot, the girl records this man in the car behind them out of curiosity. 

"He is shot, headshot, and the camera reacts, the child reacts there is a jolting movement but she keeps on taping, there is a sympathetic response, a nerve response, her heart is beating faster but she keeps the camera trained on the subject as he slides into the door" (DeLillo 62). 

This imagery depicted in this quote is disturbing, yet tender. Repetition is used in the sentence structure starting with a general idea, "he is shot and the camera reacts", followed by the same idea, "headshot and the child reacts", only more specific. The reader feels grief, as this young girl's innocence essentially dies with the man. It states, she kept the camera trained, as if there was some sort of prior preparation, and the reader wonders why a person would keep watching another human being die. There must be a compulsion because to think "at some level she has to be present, the girl is seeing the murder cold and you have to marvel at the fact that she keeps the tape rolling"; it is the ability to record and replay (DeLillo 62). The young girls obsession is apparent when she continues to tape, now that this video exists it has also become the source of others obsession. 

     The narrator has become an image of himself within this obsession of recording and replaying. He describes the video clip; "it shows a man in a sport shirt at the wheel of his car. There is nothing else to see. The car approaches briefly, then falls back" (DeLillo 59). Based on the line "there is nothing else to see", the clip first seems to be very dull, slow, and boring to the reader. As the story proceeds, the narrators' description of the video becomes more vivid; "it shows a man in his forties wearing a pale shirt open at the throat, the image washed by reflections and sunglint, with many jostled moments"(DeLillo 60). The narrator becomes more familiar with the order of events that seemed nonexistent in the beginning; he has memorized them. 

"If you've seen the tape many times you know from the hand wave exactly when he will be hit Now here is where he gets it. You see him jolted, sort of wireshocked then he seizes up and falls toward the door or maybe leans or slides into the door is the proper way to put it. The car stays in the slow lane. It approaches briefly, then falls back."(DeLillo 61) 

The use of "if" in the beginning of this quote seems to create a hypothetical situation, however, it is also the narrator relating that it is not. The narrator conveys a sense of enthusiasm when he knowingly is at the pinpoint right before the climax of the video.  He is aware of his obsession and confesses it as normal, "It is something, naturally, that you wait for" (DeLillo 61). He has himself, his obsession, on replay.   

     Reality effects perception of video footage, as the ability to see things twice affects the realness of reality. This cycle has created an obsession in the modern culture and is better understood with the use of repetition, sentence structure, and imagery. The use of second person point of view establishes a common ground between the narrator and the audience.  The short story, "Videotape," has three scenarios of this obsession of record and replay occurring at the same time. The young girl does not stop recording the murder, the narrator himself repeatedly replays the young girls video, and the murderer acts out the crime as if it were to be recorded and replayed.

