THE THIRD LEVEL-By Jack Finney

Introduction

The past is a good place to visit, but certainly not a good

place to stay. The Third Level by Jack Finney is an
engrossing story set in the 1950s. The story takes you
back in time in a world when people hadn’t seen two of
the bloodiest wars in the history of mankind.
The story also dwells on the theme of escapism as a
psychological refuge from the harsh realities of the
present day world along with a desire to stay with the
past—a desire that Charley’s wife Louisa does not
contest.

Sam Charley’s friend has also happily escaped, with no

desire to return to his old profession.

It is an entertaining story about time travel and

escapism.
 Overview.
Let us take a closer look at the story.

The Third Level tells the story of a 31-year-old guy named

Charlie (not Charlie Sheen). One fine evening, while
rushing home, he decides to take the subway from the
Grand Central Station in New York City. He ends up
finding himself on the Third Level of the Grand Central
Station (there were only two levels).
There were only two levels at Grand Central Station.
However, Charley found a third one. It was by chance.
Many a times, he was lost there. He was always
discovering new doorways, new corridors and new
tunnels. He had begun to think that the Grand Central
was always pushing out tunnels and new corridors like
roots of a huge tree.
Here, there were fewer ticket windows, the man at the
booth wore green eye-shades, the lights were open-
flame gas lights, and women wore old-fashioned, fully
covered dresses. The newspaper, ‘The World’, was dated
June 11,1894. Charley knows that from there, the third
level of the Grand Central, he could go to anywhere in
the United States, 1984. He decides to buy two tickets to
Galesburg, Illinois, for his wife Louisa and himself from
the ticket window in the third level.
Realising that he’s gone back in time, Charlie tries to buy
tickets to Galesburg. During the lunch hour, the next
afternoon, Charlie withdraws all his savings (nearly 500
US Dollars) to buy old style currency notes. Charlie
narrates this incident to Sam, his friend who works as a
psychiatrist. Sam concludes that the Third Level is
nothing but a mere figment of Charlie’s imagination. The
miseries which the modern world, full of war, worry and
terror, had to offer made Charlie hallucinate about the
existence of the Third Level.
Charlie succeeds in finding evidence related to the Third
Level’s existence. He discovers a letter addressed to him
by his psychiatrist friend Sam. The letter was dated July
18, 1894. It seemed that Sam wasn’t as incredulous of
the Third Level as he had appeared to be.
CHARLIE (The Protagonist)
Charlie is a young man living in New York. He is 31 year
old ordinary guy with a family. He is married to Louisa.
Charlie's hobby is stamp-collection (philately). Charlie
appears to be suffering from fear, insecurity and fear of
the war-ridden world. He is looking for an escape from
this world. He longs to go to a peaceful place like
Galesburg made him stray to a corridor at Grand Central
Station that took him to the Third Level of the station
from where one could take train to the past, year
1894.When he shared this incidence with his wife, she
felt angry at it; she asked him to see his psychiatrist
friend, Sam. Sam explained the unique experience to be
Charlie’s waking dream wish fulfillment. He further
explained it could have happened because of his
unhappiness or hobby of stamp collection.
.
Character Sketch of Louisa
Louisa: Louisa is Charley’s wife. She is loving and caring
towards her husband. However, she is a simple lady and
it is not difficult to take her in. She refuses to accept the
psychiatrist’s observation that her husband is unhappy.
She takes this comment as a personal attack and feels
‘kind of mad’. On being told the modern world is full of
insecurity, fear, etc. she feels satisfied with the
psychiatrist explanation.

When Charley talks to her about his predicament

regarding the third level, she gets alarmed and advises
him not to look for the third level anymore. Her
husband’s exchanging the new currency with the old one
is a cause of concern for her and she tells Charley
emphatically to stop looking for it. When Charley tells her
about Sam’s disappearance, she joins him in looking for
the third level every weekend.
Character Sketch of Sam
Sam, Charley’s Psychiatrist friend: Sam is a psychiatrist by
profession. He is a typical city boy. When Charley shares
his visiting the third level he tells him it is a waking dream
wish fulfillment. He tells him that he is looking for ways
to escape since he is not happy. But he immediately
revises his statement that Charley is a victim of
insecurities of modern life. He dubs the argument of
narrator’s hobby of stamp collection as a temporary
refuge from reality. He does not believe in mixing up his
profession with his friendship.

He gets fascinated by Charley’s description of Galesburg,

Illinois, as a wonderful town with big old frame houses,
huge lawns, and tremendous trees lining the streets. He
is also affected by the pulls and pressures of modern life
that he thinks of escaping to the peaceful world of
Galesburg of 1894. In the end, he discovers the third
level of Grand Central and goes there. He writes a letter
from there advising Charley and Louisa to keep finding
the third level because it is worth. According to Charley,
Sam must have set up his little hay feed and grain
businesses as he can’t go back to his old business as
psychiatrists are redundant in Galesburg of 1894.
Reference and significance of THE THIRD LEVEL
The third level refers to the subway of the Grand Central
Station that takes passengers to Galesburg, Illinois.
The writer uses the third level on the station as a
medium of escape for Charley, the narrator from the
harsh realities of modern life. It provided him a base
where he could interweave fantasy and reality.

ASSIGNMENT /ENGLISH/ CLASS XII –THIRD LEVEL

Q1Does the third level exist?

According to Charley’s psychiatrist Sam, it was just a

waking dream wish fulfillment and provided escape from
modern day fear, insecurity, worry, etc. On the other
hand, the clear description that Charley provides
indicates that the place really existed and later Sam
exchanging money, disappearing and sending a letter in
the first day cover perhaps prove that it was not an
escape but a reality.
Q2. What does the third level refer to and what is the
significance of third level?

The third level refers to the subway of the Grand Central

Station that takes passengers to Galesburg, Illinois. The
third level on the station was a medium of escape for
Charley, the narrator from the harsh realities of modern
life. Life today is full of insecurity, fear and worries and
time travel is man’s way of escaping it. The third level
provided him a base where he could interweave fantasy
and reality and escape from the mad rat race of modern
times.

Q3. Why could Charlie not reach the third level again?

Time travel is a temporary relief that man seeks to

escape from the rush of his present existence. It was a
world of fantasy that Charley too had created. So, he
exchanged all his savings for 1894 currency to buy tickets
from the third level to Galesburg, Illinois. However, he
could not find the third level again as it did not exist.
Q4. Why was the narrator’s wife Louisa worried?

When the narrator told Louisa about his wish she got
pretty worried. She was a loving and a caring wife. She
got alarmed at Charley’s claim of having been to the third
level. His exchanging the currency was a cause of
concern. She thought the third level to be a product of
Charley’s imagination and asked him to stop looking for
it. However, after some time they both started looking
for the third level.

Q5. What do you understand from Sam’s letter to

Charley?

The way Charley came across Sam’s letter was

surrounded in mystery. Among his oldest first-day
covers, he found an envelope. The envelope containing
the letter had the address of his grandfather. It was
written on July 18, 1894. The letter was addressed to
Charley. In the letter Sam had informed Charley that he
was living on the third level. He had also told Charley and
his wife to keep looking for the third level.
1. Sam’s letter shows man’s hope for the simple, less and
a happy life. He too had found respite from the hurry and
worry of modern life in time travel. Sam had learnt to
transport himself into the time period of his ancestors
whose quality of life he considered was better than their
present existence. He always wanted to do a sort of
business. But was unable to do so in modern America. He
never wanted to be a psychiatrists o he went to Galesburg
to do grass and hay business there. Has he been an
escapist too
2.The letter and the 3rd level this all is Charlie's
imagination he so desperately wants to prove that the
3rd level is real that he imagines his psychiatrist
friend(who has been explaining him that all this is his
temporary escape from reality) has travelled back in time
through 3rd level and has written him a letter.
3. He was so desperate that he thought of writing the
letter himself.
Q6. How did Charlie make sure that he was not in the
present time?

Charley noticed a difference in the way things looked at

the third level of the Grand Central Station. It was
smaller, with fewer ticket counters and had an old look
of the 1890s with wooden booths, dim open-flame
gaslights, brass spittoons and an old-style locomotive
with a funnel shaped stack. Even the people’s attire was
old fashioned and men had funny handle-bar mustaches
and sideburns. The whole setting was in contrast to the
modern times.
The narrator saw a man pulling a gold watch from his
vest pocket. He snapped open the cover, glanced at his
watch and frowned. He wore a derby hat, a black four-
button suit with tiny lapels and had a big, black
handlebar mustache.
The narrator walked over to a news boy. He glanced at
the stack of newspapers. It was The World and The
World had not been published for years. The lead story
was about President Cleveland. Later on, he confirmed
from the public library files that the newspaper was
dated 11th June 1894.

When Charley produced money to pay for the two

tickets, the clerk stared at him as the currency did not
match with the currency of that time. He accused him of
trying to cheat him and threatened to hand him over to
the police.

Q7. Why did Charlie suspect that Sam had gone to

Galesburg?
or
Did Sam really go to The Third Level

Charley suspected he had gone to Galesburg as Sam was

a city boy and liked Galesburg very much. He also
admitted that Sam who was his psychiatrist who could
not go back to his ‘old business’ (psychiatry) in 1894.
He was also missing and had stopped coming to their
place.
PROOF
Charley found out that he had exchanged a large sum of
present time dollars and bought eight hundred dollars
worth of old-style currency which he wanted to invest in
the business in 1894 at Galesburg.

Q9. What is the irony in the third level?

Sam explained Charley’s experience as ‘ Waking – dream

wish fulfilment .
He believed 3rd level was a medium to escape from
tension of modern life.
But later, Sam himself found the 3rd level and got settled
there.
Earlier he believed there was not third level at all but
ironically he himself became a resident of Galesburg . He
even urged charley to keep finding it

Q10.What is First Day Cover in the third level?

When a new stamp is issued, stamp collectors buy some

and use them to mail envelopes to themselves on the
very first day of sale; and the postmark proves the date.
They’re never opened; they just put blank paper in the
envelope. The envelope is called a first-day cover

Q11.Apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to be a

futuristic projection? Discuss.

It is true that apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to

be a futuristic projection. A good number of scientific
inventions sounded ridiculous and absurd till some
brilliant minds gave them a concrete shape. Before the
Wright Brothers invented the first aeroplane, nobody
could have dared to believe that man could fly. There are
many other examples of inventions which were
conceived in dreams but now are part of our everyday
reality. All this emphasizes that fantasies of one point of
time that seem illogical may turn out to be revolutionary
things that change the future of the mankind. It would
not be far-fetched to think about railway stations fitted
with time-machine devices from one era to another. It is
just a matter of time.

Q12. ‘The modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war,

worry and stress.’ What are the ways in which we
attempt to overcome them? (Article)