One of the subtler themes of “The Third Level” is the enormous trauma suffered by American society in the aftermath of both World War I and World War II. The story was published in 1950, which was only a few decades after World War I and a mere five years after World War II. Throughout the story, the protagonist, Charley, laments the anxiety of modern society and yearns for a simpler time when the world was a friendlier place. Much of his desire to travel to the past comes from the fact that it is a time before the World Wars; for instance, he envies his grandfather for having grown up in a time of peace. As a result, when he discovers the third level, which grants him the chance to travel back to 1894, he’s eager to do so in order to live in a time when both World Wars are still a long way off. His desire to escape the present, then, is not so much a means to escape his individual emotional trauma—he’ll still have his own memories of living through the wars—but to escape a society that has been profoundly affected by these wars, to the point that everyone around him is constantly unhappy and distant. In this way, the collective pain of the two World Wars underlies the nostalgia, idealism, and escapism that defines Charley’s character.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Trauma of War ThemeTracker
The Trauma of War Quotes in The Third Level
I told him about the third level at Grand Central Station, and he said it was a waking-dream wish fulfillment. He said I was unhappy. That made my wife kind of mad, but he explained that he meant the modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it, and that I just want to escape. Well, hell, who doesn’t? Everyone I know wants to escape, but they don’t wander down into any third level at Grand Central Station.
My stamp collecting, for example; that’s a “temporary refuge from reality.” Well, maybe, but my grandfather didn’t need any refuge from reality; things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started my collection.
Have you ever been there? It’s a wonderful town still, with big old frame houses, huge lawns and tremendous trees whose branches meet overhead and roof the streets. And in 1894, summer evenings were twice as long, and people sat out on their lawns, the men smoking cigars and talking quietly, the women waving palm-leaf fans, with the fireflies all around, in a peaceful world. To be back there with the First World War still twenty years off, and World War II over forty years in the future … I wanted two tickets for that.
