The Trauma of War Theme Analysis

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.