Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Third Level, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Modernity and Nostalgia
Escapism
Reality vs. Imagination
The Trauma of War
Summary
Analysis
Charley insists that there is a third level to New York’s Grand Central Station, even though everyone else insists there are only two. Although he claims to have visited it, his psychiatrist says that his experience is nothing more than mental escapism from the modern world. Charley acknowledges that he wants to escape, but he also points out that everyone wants to escape the modern world due to its instability and war—and yet, not everyone imagines extra floors to Grand Central Station. Charley’s friends also point to his stamp-collecting habit as evidence of his tendency towards escapism, but he refutes this by arguing that his grandfather grew up in more peaceful times but still collected stamps.
The story’s opening immediately introduces its primary point of tension: the ideological conflict between the protagonist, Charley, and modern society. Although Charley knows that he discovered a secret level to Grand Central Station, his peers point to his idealist and escapist tendencies as evidence that he imagined the whole thing. Charley, however, counters this by suggesting that the dissatisfaction he feels is no different from anyone else living in the difficult modern era. In other words, while Charley’s friends believe that something is wrong with Charley, Charley instead believes that something is wrong with modern society.
Themes
Charley turns to recounting his discovery of the third level. On his way home from work, he decides to take the subway, since it will get him home faster from work—a detail he uses to point out that he is not trying to escape anything, but merely trying to get home to his wife Louisa. In attempting to find his train, he gets lost in the station. According to him, this is a common occurrence due to the building’s convoluted architecture. He idly speculates that Grand Central Station is “growing like a tree, pushing out new corridors and staircases like roots.”
Charley’s musings about the station’s architecture further illustrate the story’s theme of escapism from modernity. The station is a massive industrial structure that Charley gets lost in while trying to get home; in this way, he is literally swallowed up by modernity. His musings that Grand Central Station is constantly growing also implies that modernity is an unstoppable force that continues to spread across society, despite the unhappiness and aimlessness that it causes.
Themes
Charley continues down a long corridor in silence for a while. He then begins to hear the commotion of people ahead. Exiting the tunnel, he comes out onto the third level. Various details, such as open-flame gaslights, brass spittoons, and everyone’s 19th-century clothes hint to him that something’s strange, but it isn’t until he sees a Currier & Ives train that he realizes that he has travelled into the past. He checks a newspaper and sees that it’s an issue of The World, which has not been published in many years. The specific issue mentions President Cleveland—Charley notes that he will later track the issue down in the library and discover that is from 1894.
In contrast to the cold and intimidating imagery of the station up to this point, when the third level is revealed, it is a vibrant, warm, and fascinating place. Whereas the story has been relatively scant on setting description, Finney now includes a variety of details from the platform and the people that occupy it. These details lead up to the revelation that the third level is set in the past, specifically 1894. In this way, the narrative uses imagery and description to associate the past with a warmer and livelier atmosphere than the modern present.
Themes
Upon realizing he has travelled into the past, Charley immediately approaches the ticket gate with the intention of buying two tickets to Galesburg, Illinois for Louisa and himself. Galesburg, he claims, is a beautiful town even in the present, thanks to its enormous houses, trees, and lawns. Charley believes it would be even more lovely in 1894, where summer evenings are longer, neighborhoods are more tranquil, and both World Wars are still decades away. In buying the tickets, he hopes that he and his wife can become part of this peaceful world.
Charley’s immediate desire to travel to the past drives home the story’s positive depiction of nostalgia. Specifically, Charley’s romantic notion of the past is represented by Galesburg, a suburban town that stands in stark contrast to the cramped and urban New York City. Charley also has an especially strong desire to live in a time before World Wars I and II, implying that the trauma of the two wars is a major reason modern society is such a miserable place.
Themes
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Charley has enough money for two one-way tickets, but when he attempts to pay, the clerk refuses to accept his modern currency. Charley, not wanting to get arrested, quickly leaves. The next day, he spends $300—nearly all the money he and Louisa have—in order to get less than $200 in old currency, rationalizing his decision by pointing out that inflation means that his money in 1894 is worth a great deal more. However, he is unable to find the third level again.
When Charley attempts to pay for the tickets, the clerk’s suspicious reaction to his modern currency serves as a painful reminder of Charley’s place in modern society. This point is further driven home when, after fleeing the third level and going to buy old currency, he is unable to find the third level again. Although Charley was able to get a glimpse of the happier and easier past, his existence as a modern person has doomed him to continue his current life in the 20th century.
Themes
After his failure, Charley initially gives up on searching for the third level at Louisa’s insistence and goes back to his stamp collection. However, he and Louisa both eventually pick up the search again after his friend Sam disappears. Although nobody knows where Sam went, Charley suspects that Sam found the third level and went to 1894 Galesburg. His reasoning is that, even though Sam is a city boy, he always seemed deeply drawn to Galesburg whenever Charley talked to him about it.
Like Charley, Sam is also drawn to Galesburg as a symbol of peace and simplicity. This is especially notable since, unlike Charley, Sam grew up in New York City and therefore would seemingly be more attuned to modern urbanity than the more idealist Charley—but, as it turns out, Sam is as weary of modernity as Charley is, vindicating Charley’s earlier implication that everyone is unhappy in the 20th century.
Themes
One night, while looking through his stamp collection, Charley finds a first-day cover—a letter mailed with a stamp on the first day of that stamp’s sale. The stamp was mailed to Charley’s grandfather and is postmarked July 18, 1894, with a six-cent stamp of President Garfield on the envelope. Charley has never seen this first-day cover in his collection before, so he opens it. Inside is a letter to Charley from his friend Sam, who tells Charley that he made it to 1894 Galesburg and loves it. Later, Charley discovers that Sam bought $800 of old currency, which would be enough for him to set up a new business. And setting up a new business would be necessary, Sam notes, because psychiatry didn’t exist in 1894, and Sam was a psychiatrist—in fact, he was Charley’s psychiatrist.
The story’s ending connects the past and present through Charley’s stamp collection, which allows Sam to contact him and confirm Charley’s suspicions that Sam successfully made it to 1894 Galesburg. Furthermore, the twist that Sam is Charley’s psychiatrist is extremely significant in that, throughout the story, Charley’s psychiatrist has represented the pragmatism of modern life. That Sam, rather than Charley, is the one to successfully make it to 1894 highlights the superiority of the past over the present, as it implies that even someone who has entered a field as modern as psychiatry secretly craves a simpler, more nostalgic life.
Themes
