Shutter Island begins with the protagonist, U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule taking a boat to Shutter Island. Shutter Island was the home to Ashecliffe Asylum for the criminally insane. Ashecliffe has a ward system depicted in the movie is very similar to asylums we have read about like Ionia. Teddy and his partner were sent to the asylum to investigate the disappearance of a patient named Rachel Solando who had supposedly murdered her three kids. While Teddy had experienced the traumatic death of his wife, he also had PTSD from World War I when he liberated the prisoners at Dachau.
However, Teddy had really taken the case to find the man who had murdered his wife, Andrew Laeddis. Andrew was said to have been on Shutter Island and Teddy was determined to find him. But first, Teddy would set his sights on finding Rachel. Teddy then interviews various patients and doctors about Rachel, and they seem to be confrontational towards him. After a short amount of time Rachel is found much to the surprise of Teddy. This begins to raise suspicions as to the motives of the asylum doctors and staff. Teddy and Chuck venture to ward C, the most violent ward. There he meets a patient he recognizes. His name was George Noyce, and he warns Teddy that the staff have set up the whole investigation to trick him. He also mentions that the lighthouse has been experimenting with lobotomies.
Teddy then goes with Chuck to search for the lighthouse. While searching, Chuck seemingly falls off the cliff and Teddy goes down to find his body. While at the bottom of the cliffs, Teddy finds a woman who claims to be the real Rachel Solando. Rachel states that she was a former nurse and was turned into a patient because she spoke out against the experiments being performed on patients.
The questionable experiments with psychopharmacology and psychosurgery in the movie were seen in asylums we have talked about in class. After meeting Rachel, Teddy now believed that Chuck was taken to the lighthouse to be experimented on, so he sets his sights on the lighthouse. After reaching the lighthouse, the asylum director is waiting patiently for him at his desk. The director states that Teddy was really Andrew Laeddis and was the one who had murdered his wife after she killed his kids due to her being manic depressive. At this point in the movie, it is revealed that the investigation was all an attempt to release “Teddy” from his delusions. He needed to come to terms with his past and the fact that he had killed his wife. Everything sinister Teddy had uncovered was all results of his delusions. Overall, this movie relates heavily to our discussions in class. The movie grapples with the debate over psychosurgery vs psychopharmacology, the effects of medication on patients, the treatment of returning soldiers with PTSD, and
The director tells Andrew that if he does not accept that he needs treatment, then he will be lobotomized. The doctor wished to try something less evasive because he did not believe in lobotomy as much as psychopharmacology. This is similar to the shift in medical professionals’ willingness to treat noninvasively vs a more permanent physical option like lobotomies. Andrew accepts his fate for a short while but then is shown reverting to his old ways and is lobotomized.
