The Significance of the Title

The title, 'The Third Level', names the strange, extra level of Grand Central Station that officially does not exist. The great terminal is known to have two levels; the third is the one Charley claims to have reached, the one that opens onto the world of 1894. On the surface, then, the title simply points to the story's central puzzle. But its real force is symbolic. The third level is the imagined doorway to the past and to escape - a hidden passage out of the anxious, hurried present into a calmer, safer age. By naming the story after this doorway rather than after Charley or the events, Finney signals that the heart of the tale is not what happens but what the third level stands for: the possibility, real or dreamed, of stepping out of the modern world altogether. …