The short story Button, Button, and the movie The Box are similar in the sense both deal with a box that holds a button coming into the lives of Norma and Arthur, the box offers monetary value in return of the button being pressed which results in the death of an unknown person. In both the short story and the movie one of the spouse dies after Norma pushes the button. Both emphasize the two well-known experiments, the Milgram experiment, and the Stanford prison experiment. By showing human nature of reasoning when they do not suffer the consequences of their actions. Only to show not everything is what it seems.
Button, Button is a short story that has two protagonists, Norma, and Arthur, they are brought into a so-called test. They open their door to find a box that holds …show more content…
The 1963 Milgram experiment was a study held by Yale, the study hoped to find out why so many German individuals allowed the horrific acts of Nazi Germany to happen. The experiment concluded ordinary people are likely to follow and obey orders given to them by an authority figure even to the extent of killing an innocent being. The experiment leads to Milgram's Agency Theory which states people actually have two states when they are in a social situation. The autonomous state; people in this state take direct responsibility for their actions an example being Arthur since he knew it was not right to take an innocent life. This leads us to Norma, the second state called The Agentic State these are the people that follow orders and pass the responsibility for their actions. In this case, it will be those that pushed the button because she believed since she was not the one that was doing the horrific act herself it was ok hence the nonchalant
Button, Button is a short story that has two protagonists, Norma, and Arthur, they are brought into a so-called test. They open their door to find a box that holds …show more content…
The 1963 Milgram experiment was a study held by Yale, the study hoped to find out why so many German individuals allowed the horrific acts of Nazi Germany to happen. The experiment concluded ordinary people are likely to follow and obey orders given to them by an authority figure even to the extent of killing an innocent being. The experiment leads to Milgram's Agency Theory which states people actually have two states when they are in a social situation. The autonomous state; people in this state take direct responsibility for their actions an example being Arthur since he knew it was not right to take an innocent life. This leads us to Norma, the second state called The Agentic State these are the people that follow orders and pass the responsibility for their actions. In this case, it will be those that pushed the button because she believed since she was not the one that was doing the horrific act herself it was ok hence the nonchalant