[3][4][5] The story takes place in downtown Manhattan, New York City, where the protagonist (Blake), attempts to escape his former employee (Miss Dent), who was fired shortly after a one-night stand.
The Five-Forty-Eight refers to the commuter train that carries office workers and executives between Manhattan, New York and the suburbs.
The story begins with Blake exiting an elevator in the building where he works in New York City, on his way to catch the Five-Forty-Five that will take him home to Shady Hill.
Dent, a young woman of crushingly low self esteem, expressed her affection for Blake by presenting him with a rose, which he discarded in the wastebasket.
The letter addresses Blake as her husband, details dreams she had and touches on her time spent in a mental hospital.
Miss Dent escorts Blake off the train at gunpoint and orders him to his knees, assuring him that she doesn't want to hurt him, merely teach him the lesson he would otherwise be incapable of learning himself.
The review describes Blake's confidence as based on his own "Self-Importance" and nothing more substantial than acting on the "sumptuary laws" of the upper/middle class.
Martin explains that this illustrates a "false-front emptiness" where Miss Dent thinks Blake's life is full of friendships, money, and a large and loving family but in reality he sleeps in a room by himself, torments his wife, and all but abandoned his son to a neighbor.
Martin explains that the first and third ad, that depict a woman and a man toasting wine and a Hawaiian dancer, show visual manifestations of Blake's and Miss Dent's emotional desolation and psychological dysfunction.
A rubber heel placed on the bottom of a shoe to prevent slipping and falling is actually a metaphor for Blake and Miss Dent.
However Miss Dent undergoes real change: with her decision to not kill Blake, she discovers some kindness and saneness within herself that could be put to use.
Baxter says that Blake as a character is "a completely loathsome suburbanite who keeps up the appearance of gentility in business and at home, but whose inner life is hypocritical and self-deluded".
Literary critic Patrick Menanor considers it "Cheever's most brilliant treatment of manipulation and victimization…though the story is about cruelty and revenge, it is essentially a character study of Mr. Blake as a soulless automaton, one of Cheever's most revolting sociopaths…"[12] Blake's ultimate humiliation at the hands of the victimized Miss Dent appears to not touch him.
The only effect [of his ordeal]...is to make him notice more vividly the homes, the lights, the street signs of Shady Hill, perhaps as symbols of security" that has now been undermined.
William Blake, the great [British] transitional poet" was the polar opposite of the cold-blooded rationalist in The Five-Forty-Eight.
"[14] Meanor points out that "one of William Blake's most famous and enigmatic poems is The Sick Rose, an apt symbol of the corrupting powers of rationalism" that characterized British industrialism and its destructive exploitation and dehumanization of "the poor, vulnerable, and the disenfranchised" textile workers.
A 1979 television adaptation aired on PBS called 3 by Cheever: The 5:48,[19] with Laurence Luckinbill and Mary Beth Hurt in the lead roles.