Shutter Island Psychological Analysis

First and foremost, this movie, Shutter Island, was quite amazing. It is clear that the common viewer would enjoy it very much and nearly anyone with a psychology background would love it.  Just by watching it the reasonable observer can pick up on certain hints throughout this film. Though there are plenty of underlying hints that some, maybe even most, people would miss without any knowledge in psychology. Every person should realize that Leonardo Dicaprio's character “Teddy Daniels” is actually Andrew Laeddis, mainly because it comes right out and says it in the film. Laeddis was sent to Shutter Island as a patient, but “Daniels” believes that this man is the person who killed his wife and is desperately trying to find him and possibly seek revenge. In reality he is the man who killed his wife in a fire that he caused. Unable to deal with this he created an alternate world where he is still a war hero and never had kids. He made up an ugly monster and blamed him for his wife’s death. In this new world that he created he believes that he is still an US Marshall and was sent to Shutter Island to investigate a missing person’s case.

Flashbacks

Whilst at Shutter Island he starts to experience psychotic flashbacks and visions. Some may notice, whenever he is around fire, since the real him was a pyromaniac, he has a flashback of burning down his apartment, his children being deceased. He also always sees his late wife, Dolores, when he is around fire and his destruction causing his wife’s death. When he is near water on the other hand he has flashbacks of finding his three children murdered by the hands of Dolores. As the movie progresses, he has more vivid hallucinations and starts hearing his daughter ask him why he did not save her and the others. He believes the doctors are trying to drug him secretly, either in his cigarettes or the medicine he took for his headache. This is not the case though; he actually was taken off his medicine in a final attempt to get him back to reality before the only option left was surgery.   

Therapy

The whole movie was a roleplaying game to get “Teddy” to understand that he is Andrew. The doctors want Andrew to realize that he made up “Teddy” and he is the one who took his wife’s life and then went crazy from guilt. “Teddy’s” partner, “Chuck” was actually his primary psychiatrist, Dr. Sheehan. He pretended to be his partner in order to keep an eye on him. This was their last chance to convince him of the truth. If it failed then Andrew would have to have a lobotomy. The doctors were trying to avoid doing this because they truly believed they could break through to him.

Truth

 Some people could say that they did break through to him. While others would strongly disagree, this is up to each viewer. Those who believe they did break through would say that at the end he understood what happened and simply did not want to live with that memory. At the end he states that he knows what he did and who is really is but then it shows him moments later smoking with Dr. Sheehan, where he calls him his partner again, so they feel that they must do the lobotomy because the doctors believe they have failed. Just as DiCapio’s character was walking towards the doctors for his lobotomy he turned to Dr. Sheehan and said, “This place really makes you think. Is it better to live knowing what you have done, or die a good man?” That is where you are left unsure if he was Andrew or his made up character “Teddy”.