THIRD LEVEL

BY JACK FINNEY

Main Points

1. Grand Central Station of New York has two levels. But Charley, a thirty-one year old
resident of New York, talks about a third level. He believes in the existence of this
hypothetical third level and claims to have been there.
2. Charley visits a psychiatrist friend to talk about this problem. The psychiatrist calls it a
“waking dream wish fulfillment” and rationalizes Charley's experience by saying that
the “modern world is full of insecurity, fear, worry, and war...” and everybody wants to
escape to some “temporary refuge from reality.” According to him, even hobbies like
stamp collection is a manifestation of this escape. Charley thinks about his grandfather
who didn’t need any refuge from reality. Charley’s grandfather started his collection.
3. The fast growing Grand Central station at times seems to be a maze to Charley. He
had lost his way a couple of times earlier too while taking the subway.
4. Once, he entered the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel while the other time he emerged at
an office building that was three blocks away. But this time when he loses his way,
something unique happens. He visits the third level!
5. Charley keeps walking in the quiet corridor, angling left and slanting downward, till he
reaches an architecturally old station that is completely different from the two familiar
levels.
6. The antiquated small room with fewer ticket counters and train gates, a wooden
information booth, flickering open flame gas lights and brass spittoons remind him of
the architecture of the 1800s.
7. He also finds that people are dressed in outmoded outfits. He notices that the date on
the newspaper ‘The World’ is printed June 11, 1894. As he tenders money to the clerk
at the counter to buy two tickets, he realizes that he needs to have old currency bills
to do so.
8. He had always wanted to travel to Galesburg with his wife, Louisa. In his mind, it is “a
wonderful town still, with big old frame houses, huge lawns, and tremendous trees....”
It is a place with long and pleasant summer evenings and where people have time for
 each other. So, the next day during lunch, he exchanges three hundred dollars for old
style bills amounting to some two hundred only.
9. The loss doesn’t bother him much as he believes that in Galesburg everything will be
cheaper and that he can manage even with a small amount. But, he could never again
find the corridor leading to the third level.
10. His wife Louisa is worried after knowing all this and asks him not to look for the third
level any further. Suddenly Charley realizes that his friend, Sam Weiner, is nowhere
to be found, so he and his wife keep looking for him in the weekends.
11. Philately is not just stamp collection but a broad term including the study of stamps,
postal history and other related items.
12. When a new stamp is issued, on the first day, people mail a blank paper to themselves
and then retain that unopened letter with the date on the postmark. Such an envelope
is known as a ‘first day cover’. Charley has inherited his grandfather’s collection of first
day covers.
13. One day while fidgeting with his stamp collection, Charley comes across a letter that
was not there earlier. It bears the postmark on a faded six-cent stamp with a picture
of the President Garfield.
14. The envelope was sent on July18, 1894 to Charley's grandfather in Galesburg and
was addressed to Charley.
15. The letter was written by Sam Weiner, who was Charley's psychiatrist! Sam has
reached Galesburg and is having whole of a time there.
16. He also invites Charley and Louisa to Galesburg. When Charley goes to the stamp
and coin store, he is apprised of Sam's exchanging eight hundred dollars for the old
currency bills.

CENTRAL IDEA/IRONY OF THE STORY

The story is about the notion of "escape," and specifically a kind of escape from
history. Charley, the narrator, is a typical guy—one of dozens of men who look the
same in their straw hats and gabardine suits. The escape Charley longs for is not a
vacation from the city, however: he longs to escape to the past, to a time before the
world wars. The non-existent third level of Grand Central station offers just such an
escape: it is a kind of portal to the past.

The ending is ironic because it is the narrator Charley's "psychiatrist friend" Sam

who makes it back to Galesburg, Illinois in 1893, not Charley himself. Charley confided

in Sam about the third level, and Sam of course told Charley that he was experiencing

a kind of "waking dream wish fulfillment." But Sam "got to wishing" that Charley had

been right; like everyone, Sam, too, craves an escape from the twentieth century; he

was able to find the third level (because, it is suggested, he wanted escape so badly)

and buy train tickets to Galesburg. In the end, it is the psychiatrist, who ostensibly is

trying to ground Charley in the present, who escapes into a past where even his

profession does not yet exist.

Theme

1. The story third level clearly explores the science fiction genre of ‘time travel’

2. The story also dwells on the theme of escapism, not only as a psychological refuge

from the grim realities of the present day world but also as a desire to stay with the

past or to keep the past alive in the complexities of the present.

3. In the story charley not only expresses desire to escape but also prepares and tries

very hard, a desire which is not contested by the wife either. Sam is also happily

escaped with no plans to resort to his old profession along with scores of other people

who cross the grand central everyday… to escape seems to be an all pervasive

feeling.