Button Button Analysis

If you had the chance to get $50,000 would you do it? What if you had to take another person’s life away to get it? In the story “Button, Button” By Richard Matheson, he uses a lot of red herring. As I was reading I was confused, but that’s good because the author did a nice job on throwing off the readers and making them think while reading the story. The author does this by talking about what the button is used for, how Norma was planning on using the money that she gets, and the unexpected conclusion of Arthur dying.

One example of Matheson using red herring to throw off the readers would be when Mr.Steward talks about what the button is used for. “If you push the button,” Mr.Steward told him, “somewhere in the world someone you don’t know will die. In return for which you will receive a payment of $50,000.” (Matheson, 104) As a reader, I stop and think. How is that possible? But that’s how the author gets the reader confused and it might make you think the wrong way. It confuses the reader because there

At first, Norma was talking about all of the things that she could get out of this, but when she realized that her husband really wasn’t liking the idea, she changed it all to what they could get out of it. “That I’d like for us to go to Europe. Like for us to have a cottage on the island. Like for us to have a nicer apartment, nicer furniture, nicer clothes, a car. Like for us to finally have a baby, for that matter.” (Matheson, 109) When I came to this point in the story I actually believed that she might push the button just so she could have these things in her life. It makes me wonder what things people might do just so they can get something that they want. Because Norma is really willing to take a life away so she can please herself to get and do what she’s always