All About Death

 Videotape and The Death of the Moth intersect in so many aspects, yet they convey different messages about the same dreaded topic- death. Just as Jeannette Walls repeatedly uses fire as a motif in her memoir, death is a common thread between these pieces.Woolf's piece centers more about the inevitability of death; while Delillo uncovers society's obsession of with tragedy. Woolf writes, "death is stronger than I am". She believes that death will always triumph. It will always come. In Delillo's piece, he writes, "You want her to see how it looks". Delillo exposes the psychological level on which American culture has been programmed to commodify tragedies. Just as pies, baseball, hot dogs, and casinos are a staple of the American facade, violence has also joined the list. In a weird, twisted way, it's sort of resembles this election cycle. Some are reiterating how our country might be doomed if a certain someone becomes president - which seems highly unavoidable for some. While others might say that they fear it, but they keep on obsessing over it. In Virginia Woolf's essay, death is natural- a lone ranger.It is not accompanied by the destruction of humans nor by their emotions. It is just death. Quiet and simple. Perhaps, that is why Virginia describes it as "marvelous". The setting Woolf describes complements the "natural" element of the death. She describes "the net", the flock of birds and "the horses" to create a more spontaneous mood. In contrast, in Videotape, death does not act alone. It has a culprit. This time, it is motivated by human actions- it is not natural. In return, it creates an unnatural obsession with death. Delillo uses objects and settings in his essay to further emphasize the man- made catastrophes. He chooses a highway as a location - human engineering, a "video camera" and a television as means to share this tragic incident with the world. He also profiles the characters as "the Kid", "Janet", and "the man" which conveys a more deliberate tone than that of Woolf. f