Videotape Lisa Lufon Rhetorical Devices

Lisa Lubin, infamous writer and photographer, suggests, “video informs and entertains people and, good or bad, today most people prefer to watch a video rather than read a page of text”. Videos have positive and negative connotations. Family’s often use video’s positively to capture life’s greatest moments. Parent’s often film important events in their child’s lives, such as their first steps, their first Christmas, and their first goal in a sports event, just to name a few. On the contrary, other people often view video’s negatively. They often feel that video’s only capture negative events, such as rape or murder. Videotapes were first introduced between the 1980’s and the 1990’s. Don DeLillo’s short story “Videotape” was written

In the beginning of the story, the author frankly states that his story is a homicide, before he finishes providing us with the background information. The author writes, “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, shooting some tape of a man in a car” (DeLillo 181). The author uses foreshadowing when he states this is the story of a homicide. Foreshadowing is a technique where a writer alludes to what he or she will eventually delve into later on in their work. DeLillo tells us that this is a homicide story and then he waits until later on in the story to give us the specific details of the shooting, which creates suspense for the reader. Throughout the story, he uses parallelism in his writing. He writes, “It is innocent, it is aimless, it is determined, it is real... It is crude, it is blunt, it is relentless… a sense of the random, the amateurish, the accidental, the impending” (DeLillo 181). DeLillo uses parallelism to place the most emphasis at the end syllable, which in a way adds to the foreshadowing of the story. The end syllables “It is real… it is relentless… the impending”, all complement his use of foreshadowing. Once again he creates suspense because as readers we want to know why the homicide is real, relentless, and impending. As a result, when we read the whole story, we learn the details of the homicide, and that the story is real, the killer is relentless, and the shooting is