Time continues to slip away in ways we, as humans, could never imagine. The videotape that the little 12-year old girl films is just a continuous scene of a man in his car waving ever so slightly, until he cannot wave anymore. She, filming innocently at nothing but a man in his car, and he is just driving to a destination that will never get fulfilled just as moments later he is shot in cold blood. Some people feel as if Videotape is sending the message that people will watch a video, no matter how disturbing, for entertainment. But, if you look closer you can see that the main theme that Delillo portrays is how random events can change people's perspectives, but never change how fast time can move past these events. In his story, Videotape, Don Delillo focuses on point of view, repetition of particular phrases, and the juxtaposition of the tape with his writing style to show how fleeting human existence relative to time can be rather that just sending the message that events happen just for entertainment purposes. 

Throughout the piece, there are several points of view that come into play, which helps portray how people interpret the same scenario, but in totally different ways, giving the homicide a different outlook from each point of view. From the beginning, the narrator's perspective is prevalent. He has seen the tape numerous times, so he is already aware of the outcome, making the action seem more realistic and therefor, "realer than real," (62 Delillo) as he describes it. As he watches, he sees the footage as more than just a video; he visualizes the man and the homicide as if he were the little girl filming the horrific outcome himself. As the 12 year-old girl films, she is unaware of the event that is she is about to capture. Unaware, that anything bad or traumatizing could even happen at any point in her life, which just makes the footage seem even more innocent and almost not worth the time to watch because all you can see is just a man driving just a car and occasionally shyly waving to the camera. At this point, life doesn't stop for anything or anyone; it just keeps on moving like it always does, making everything seem insignificant and unprepared for what is about to happen within the next few moments. And then, all of a sudden, "You see him jolted, sort of wireshocked then he seizes up and falls toward the door,"(61 Delillo). The girl jolts just as the gun shoots the man in the car. The narrator is awestruck that the unprepared child would continue filming even though she has just witnessed a murder in cold blood. The narrator says that, "It is not just another video homicide, it is a homicide recorded by a child who thought she was doing something simple and maybe halfway clever," (60 Delillo).  Perspective is everything. From a child's point of view, the homicide is unreal because children are unaware that bad things can even happen in this world. But from a man who has seen and heard of all of the horrific and shocking events that happen because of humans, it just makes the action seem more real than it ever could, because he can finally visualize how quickly life can just stop. The video puts into perspective how fast a life can be taken away in an instant, but nothing stops to really look at it, life just keeps on moving forward. 

Delillo repeats certain descriptions and phrases to show the reader the significance of the videotape, and the reactions people have towards it. Delillo describes the victim four different times, in four different ways. He says, in his first description, that the victim is a, "man in his early forties wearing a pale shirt open at the throat, the image washed away by reflections and sunglint" (60 Delillo). Why would he repeat this short and vague description of the victim four different times, using different words, just to get his point across? Delillo abuses repetition to show how average and out of the ordinary the victim was, and how easily it could have been anybody else driving an average car on this particular road at this particular time. He repeats this description to also show how random the, "Texas Highway Killer," (62 Delillo) chooses his victims.  Hollywood portrays death as a certain, well-thought out, and predictable scene. In life, nothing can be predicted, and nothing can be changed. Human existence just continues to move past the change that is occurring all around us. Delillo also refers to every person, every feeling, and every time the tape is mentioned as, "it." He repeats, "It is," over and over again, which juxtaposes his writing style with the flow of the tape. The tape is very slow moving, and flows (with minor jolts of the camera due to the child filming) together up until the point of no return. This compared to the use of the pronoun, "it," makes every noun almost blur together; just as the tape seems to blur together, but never slows down or stops; as if they could all be interpreted the same way. Delillo extensively reuses phrases and ideas so his writing can be compared to the way the film is shot it is the same man sitting in his car over and over again until the man is suddenly leaning on his window. He repeats phrases and words over and over again until the narrator finally gets his wife to see the outcome of the video, to which she is unprepared for the outcome, just like the flow of the film. 

Time is a human creation that has taken ahold of our every day lives, and it continues to move past us in a way that seems like it almost isn't moving at all. And, although people will watch anything if it is entertaining enough that is not what Delillo is trying to send to the reader. Instead he utilizes repetition, juxtaposition, and the use of perspective to get this point across, and to show how quickly life can be taken away. 

