The Third Level : A Science Fiction

Lesson: The Third Level : A Science Fiction Date 16/04/2020

The story The Third Level explores the science fiction genre of ‘time travel’; Jack Finney, the World Fantasy Award winner intertwine fantasy with the reality in the most futuristic projection of time travel.

Charley a thirty one year old having worked late at night enters Grand Central station to board a train home. The station is large having various corridors and two levels giving a way to many trains, so he loses his way there. He finds himself in what he thinks is the third level of the station(In reality only two exists). He realizes that

something is different there- the people dressed differently, the area lit no electricity but with open gas fires. He concludes that he has somehow entered in the year 1894, looking the date June 11, 1894 on the news paper ‘The World’(which is in reality closed many years ago). Filled with excitement, he decides to buy two tickets for Galesburg, the peaceful town that he has grown up in. But he realizes that he does not have the currency of that time period and 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 did not allow him to find the third level again. They  think the incident as a figment of his imagination and attribute it to his desire to escape from the stresses, worries, anxiety and fear of his life. Meanwhile his psychiatrist friend Sam goes missing.

Eventually to the fact, Charley finds a letter by Sam in an old First Day Cover dated July 18th 1894. In the letter, his missing friend Sam tells Charley that he has settled in down in Galesburg and asked him not to stop his search for the Third level as it is worthwhile. Sam is running a nice little hay, feed and grain business, something that he always wished for.

The author leaves the readers wondering what the Third Level really is, though Charley finds proof of his experience, and found that it is possible to make transition back and forth in time. Jack Finney a writer of science fiction treats his favourite subject, Time in a new dimension. The strange, mysterious and undiscovered world exists somewhere between dreams, desires and reality. And that is what called The Third Level. It is the point where the past, the present and the future meets. The  intersection of time as well as place. An indeed, a time travel story is The Third Level. 

M. A. Ghonshetwad

PGT English, JNV Yavatmal