English essay "Button, Button"

English Essay

“Button, Button“ by Richard Matheson

Is this short story relevant in today’s society?

In this short story, a couple, Norma and Arthur Lewis are being offered by a man named Mr. Steward to win fifty thousand dollars if they push a button however if they do it someone would die. This situation causes a moral dilemma, on one hand, they’d gain fifty thousand dollars, on the other hand, someone would die. Norma called Mr. Steward who assured her that the who'd die will be someone she doesn’t know. After hesitating for a long time Norma eventually pushed the button and her husband had a train accident that took his life; Arthur left behind him his life insurance of twenty-five thousand dollars doubled if he dies from an accident. The life insurance was the fifty thousand dollars promised by Mr. Steward.

This story echoes the Milgram experiment whose purpose is to know how far someone would go if they’re ordered to but in this case, Norma wasn’t ordered nor forced to act like this. She acted by selfishness and stinginess. Nowadays, some people act like this moreover they kill people voluntarily to gain wealth not to mention pro killers. There is a lot of murder where the husband kills his wife to get money from the life insurance or vice versa but that ain’t the only way they’ve found. Let's take for example the case of a twenty-eight years old man who in 2017 tried to kill an entire german soccer team after betting against them in the stock exchange. Fortunately, his scheme failed and made no casualty; he was apprehended not long after. In this case, the death of the soccer players would have benefited the killer. However, death doesn’t always benefit the killer it’s rather collateral damage like for Purdue Pharma company. Purdue Pharma is a family pharmaceutical company that has become one of the richest companies in the United States generating thirty-five billion dollars in 2017 by selling supposedly non-addictive painkillers. These pain killers are the source of hundreds of thousands of deaths in America between 1999 and 2017. After having spread death in America and driven by profit Purdue Pharma started to extend its business worldwide ignoring all the deaths they would be responsible for. Purdue Pharma was pursued in Justice for the death by overdose of a lot of people. These lawsuits caused the company to bankrupts in 2019.

Richard Matheson's story Button, Button talks about the morality behind gaining benefits at the expense of the lives of others; without killing, only knowing that someone would die. Nowadays, many people would do immoral things like murdering their conjunct for money or even causing thousands of people to lose their life only to make profits. These examples show well that Richard Matheson's story is still relevant in our days in fact, they're worse than the story itself not only from the number of victims but also from the willingness to kill, all that for the only goal of stacking bits of paper with Benjamin Franklin's head printed on them.

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