Videotape by Don DeLillo is a short story about a highway homicide caught on tape by a little girl. A little girl is videotaping a man driving in the car behind her family's car. The man notices her videotaping him and he finds it amusing. He plays along by waving and smiling at her. The next thing you know another vehicle comes up to the side of the mans car and shoots him. The whole thing is caught on tape by this child. This is the eleventh homicide in the area similar to this, but this is the first time it was caught on tape. The author, Don DeLillo, uses many literary devices, such as illusions and imagery, to convey his main points and ideas created by the story of the Texas Highway Murderer.

To begin, he tells the story through an interesting writing style. He tells the story through flipping back and forth from explaining the event and to illustrate what a stereotypical camera is used for by a child. The reader thinks that by the author writing like this he is actively reflecting on his own childhood and how he has experienced documenting gatherings and celebrations. "You know about families and their video cameras. You know how kids get involved  You know how children with cameras learn to work the exposed moments that define a family cluster... You know how families make up games  You know about holidays and family celebrations and how somebody shows up with a camcorder and the relatives stand around and barely react because they're numbingly accustomed to the process" (59-61). He addresses the reader with "You know how" numerous times. The repetition and being addressed in this manner gives the reader an interpretation that he went through similar events that he describes in this short story. 

The author also uses striking imagery when he is describing the actual event of the homicide. "You see a man at the wheel of a medium Dodge  bald up the middle of his head  in his forties wearing a pale shirt open at the throat, the image washed by reflections and [sunlight], with many jostled movements  whose whole life seems open to the handheld camera" (59-60). After reading this passage I have a clear picture in my mind of what the Texas highway homicide victim looked like. With a vivid description of the appearance that Don DeLillo gives the reader in makes the actual homicide event seem more real and personal then anything else. Vivid imagery always makes a reader more intertwined with the characters and the plot of the story, and this is exactly what Don DeLillo does in his piece, Videotape.

In between when Don DeLillo explains to the reader the story of the homicide he brings things to a more personal level. He starts talking directly to the reader about stereotypical events a family goes through. I find this ironic because the story he is telling is not a stereotypical family event. I think he does this because he wants to show the contrast of the event happening in the story and the reader's life experiences. As the story continues on he continues to make it more personal. He makes it more personal by revealing more and more information to us, the readers, about the child and the man murdered. For example, he slowly reveals more visual facts of what the man looks like and how he is an average "nice guy" (60) who "makes you like him" (60). He gets more and more specific with the murderer too. He starts off the story saying it was a homicide not giving us any context clues on how the homicide comes about or why it is this nice guy getting killed, but by the end of the story he tells us the murder was "committed by the Texas Highway Killer" (62). He also says "[t]his is either the tenth or eleventh homicide committed by the Texas Highway Killer" (62). He gets more and more specific with the entire story as it goes on. He could have told the entire story in a page or less, but instead he inserted chunks of personal information that you may or may not have experienced. He does this to relate to you, the reader, to make it more personable than just a fictional piece or a news article that this story could have been.

The role of the camera is clearly very important to Don DeLillo. The role of the camera is a tool for recording memories and family celebrations. "You know about families and their video cameras. 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  You know how children with cameras learn to work the exposed moments that define a family cluster. They break every trust" (59-60). This illustrates that to Don DeLillo views the camera as an instrument used to capture family moments, the good and the bad. There are many more instances where Don DeLillo creates this illusion. However, by the end of his piece the camera means something entirely different. "The story suggests that the crimes committed by the Texas Highway Killer 'are inseparable from the idea of taping and playing, [that] he commits the crimes as if they were a form of taped-and-played event" (63). What he means by a "taped-and-played event" is that it can and will be played over and over again and yet it was taped only once. Everyone can see the girl's perspective to the incident, and yet no one felt what she felt at the time of the homicide. It distorts the seriousness of the incident. Yes, the man was killed. However, the girl has to live with what she saw and seeing it aired over and over again does not help her. The role of the camera goes from being a helpful and happy tool to a dark and horrific tool.

Overall, Don DeLillo's Videotape is a story about a highway homicide caught on tape by a little girl in the back of her family's vehicle. The story he tells has many underlying meanings and messages to the reader about family, video cameras, and just overall underlying morals. sHe uses a plentiful amount of literary devices to convey meanings that are not just illustrated in the text. 

