Button, Button by Richard Matheson, Analysis by Muhammad Raza

 “Button, Button” Analysis

“Button, Button” by Richard Matheson is one of those extremely eerie and unnerving short stories you would read in a high school English class. The story follows the two characters, Norma and Arthur Lewis, who receive a mysterious button from a strange man who tells them that, if they press it, someone they do not know will die and they will receive a handsome payout of $50,000. The couple debates endlessly about the authenticity of the button, why someone would make a button like this, and the ethics regarding this situation. Arthur is disgusted with the whole situation, and he is strictly against pressing the button even though it is apparent that he and Norma could use the money. Norma, on the other hand, is extremely tempted, and eventually presses the button near the end of story. The result is that her husband dies in a subway accident, and she receives the money from his life insurance (the reason for her husband being someone who could die was because, as the salesman put it, she did not really know her husband). Though the plot is simple, this short story is a great commentary about how our morals stack against materialism and greed. One aspect of this story that I find the most intriguing, however, is how Norma reacts to the fact that someone she does not know will die as an exchange for money.

It is apparent throughout the whole story that Norma wants to press the button and get the money, despite the fact that it is literally a murdering device. While she is otherwise portrayed as a completely ordinary middle-aged woman with no harmful characteristics or intentions, I believe that the fact that someone she would not know would die is the aspect of the button that most primarily motivates her intentions. When arguing with Arthur over the button, she says that it could kill anyone, including “ ‘some old Chinese peasant then thousand miles away’ ”, or “ ‘[s]ome diseased native in the Congo’”, though this attitude is in sharp contrast to her shock when her husband, the person closest to her, eventually dies (Matheson 6). It is interesting to see how Norma dehumanizes other individuals throughout the story for a shot at personal gain, with her thinking of Chinese and Congo natives as mere insignificant numbers whose death would not affect her world. In the end, everyone whom she doesn’t know is just a statistic or object to her, one that could be used to make herself better. Though this story is inherently fictional, Norma’s attitude is analogous to the attitude that many of us have today. In our world, injustice and exploitation is prevalent, and is sometimes even necessary for the benefit of others. New crises and catastrophes take place every day as we watch from the comfort of our homes, not wanting to take action because the lives of random people from other parts of the world do not affect us. This story is a great reflection on how easily our morals diminish and dissolve when we have no relationship to a situation that we are not related to, and is a warning for those living this path of inaction and indifference. The moral is: the fact that someone or something does not affect you directly doesn’t make them or it any less important.