Fairy Tale Spotlight: Button, Button [Short Story Review]

[This blog entirely spoils the story.]

"Button, Button" is a short story written by Richard Matheson. It was first published in 1970 for Playboy. It has been since adapted to both a Twilight Zone episode and was also made into a really good movie called "The Box."

The only reason I chose to read this story was because I loved the movie. "The Box" is actually one of my favorite films of all time. I have seen it multiple times since it came out in 2009. The Twilight Zone episode was fascinating, but there were some problems with it.

The whole idea of the story was that a man named Mr. Stewart delivers a box with a button in it. He says to the wife of the household that if she presses the button, she will receive $50,000, but someone she doesn't know, somewhere in the world, will die. This poses an extreme moral dilemma for the wife, something the husband is drastically against. She is against it too... but she just can't stop wondering about it.

Now, I am about to do some spoilers here, and the reason I am going to do it is because there is a problematic aspect of the short story. It is a problem that the Twilight Zone episode and the movie did not have. It has to do with the ending. I really did think that the two film versions were good enough as far as the message and how everything is ultimately handled, but sadly the short story ends in something that feels like a tongue-in-cheek joke.

In the story, the woman ends up pressing the button despite her husband being against it. A short while after she does this, she gets a call that her husband has been killed. She cries out to Mr. Stewart over the phone that he said that it would be someone she didn't know, to which he replies, "My dear lady, do you really think you knew your husband?"

I groaned. I mean, I get the joke, but there was clearly a better way to end this story, namely the way the two film versions ended, which I won't be spoiling in this blog. I was so disappointed that the whole story just ended up being used to deliver some dark humor. That said, it did have a point. I'll give it credit for that, but I don't think it really lands as good as later versions.

I don't really recommend "Button, Button" as much as the movie. Go see "The Box." Just do it. It's an amazing film that gives you a full disclosure about what is really going on. It's very satisfying.

This blog was written on April 18, 2023.

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