Name of the lesson: THE THIRD LEVEL written by: JACK FINNEY Page A
Class: XII
GIST OF THE LESSON
Theme: Charley a thirty one year old having worked late at night enters Grand Central Station from Vanderbilt avenue, with the aim of boarding a train home. As the station is large consisting of various corridors and two levels catering for different trains, he loses his way. He finds himself in what he thinks is the third level of the station. He realizes that something is different there as the people are dressed differently and the area is lit not with the electric light of the modern times but with open gas fires. He suddenly makes the discovery that he has somehow entered the year 1894. he sees the date on the news paper ‘The World’ that has not been published for many years. The paper that he glances at bears the date June 11, 1894. he is filled with excitement and he decides to buy two tickets for Galesburg, the peaceful town that he has grown up in.
Charley discovers that he does not have the appropriate currency of that period and is therefore unable to buy the ticket. His wife and his psychiatrist friend, Sam as well as his other friends are quite alarmed when they hear his account and forbid him to seek the third level again. They treat the incident as a figment of his imagination and attribute it to his desire to escape from the stresses of his life.
However, Charley’s friend, Sam disappears and Charley finds a letter from him in an old First Day Cover dated July 18th 1894. In the letter, Sam tells Charley that he has settled in down in Galesburg and urges him not to give up his search for the Third level as it is well worth the effort. Sam is now engaged in a nice little hay, feed and grain business, something that he has always wished he could do.
The author leaves the readers wondering what the Third Level really is. Though Charley is able to find proof of his