Analyse af 'Let's go to the Video Tape'

It is obviously hard for someone to lose a very important person in their life, and everyone has their own ways to cope with it. But the question is do we ever move on and how, do we really have to confront death? Fiona Maazel’s short story ‘’Let's go to the video tape’’ from 2016, touched upon those subjects, by getting to know about a father and son who lost their wife and mother and how they manage to individually cope with things after the traumatic event from the father’s perspective.

Nick is a single father who lost his wife in a car accident, so now it's just him and his son Gus. In the text it tells us that Nick sends in funny videos of Gus to a televised contest which he ends up winning. ‘’Because the hardest part of being a single parent wasn’t the logistics or even the exhaustion, but just the solitude of having no one to share his son’s life with’’ (P.2, L 52-54) This tells us that Nick uses social media and the positive reactions from his videos, to cope with his wife’s death. He says that he doesn't have anyone to share his son with, which is what hurts the most actually. Posting those videos of his son on the internet makes him feel like he has someone to share his son with, since his friends and others sends back happy responses.” You’re my special guy’’ he’d said. ‘’And after tonight, everyone will know it.” (P.1, L 36) Nick needs the ‘’positive attention’’ his friends and viewers give him the validation that he needs, to feel like he is doing great, and that Gus seems like a happy child, even though the wife/mother has passed. Though it is a little different for Gus. Gus kind of worries about the outcome of those videos and how it might make things worse for him. ‘’This morning he had asked Nick if the show was really a good idea because one of the kids at school had seen the video online and called him a tard’’ (P.1, L 33-34) It is obviously bothering Gus which makes it hard for him to maybe cope with the loss which Nick is aware of, but if it makes Nick feel happy like his second date with his wife, then it's very hard to let it go just like that, since it’s his ‘’happy place’’.