58 pages • 1 hour read
Dennis LehaneShutter Island
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The Tension Between the Past and Progress
At the beginning of Shutter Island, Chuck tells Teddy that hospitals like Ashecliffe will cease to exist in twenty years. Chuck worries that closing psychiatric hospitals means losing “‘our past to assure our future’” (18). The past and progress are at odds with one another throughout the novel, and Lehane argues that a person cannot embrace one without sacrificing the other.
The past is attractive because it offers permanence; while the future has yet to be written, and is thus unpredictable, the past is unchangeable. Teddy, whose present is dangerous and whose future looks bleak, holds on to the past to relive his happiest moments with Dolores. In remembering the past, Teddy experiences the way their love filled him “the way food, blood, and air never could” once again (242). Teddy’s memories allow him to cling to Dolores with the desperation of a lost man. In many ways, Teddy has lost himself to the past. He fears that moving forward will mute Dolores’ image until she becomes “less of a person who had lived and more the dream of one,” so he visits her every night in his dreams (200).
The counterpoint is equally true—the future offers progress, but at the expense of history. Teddy must relinquish his past to move into the future. He is held back, however, by a combination of love and guilt. Even the implication of moving on sets Teddy on edge. He has a visceral, physical reaction to George Noyce’s suggestion that escaping Shutter Island means letting Dolores go. Teddy tenses and feels “screams welling in the center of his chest,” and he responds, “‘I can’t’” (242). Noyce is right, though: the harder Teddy clings to his memory of Dolores, the further he floats away from sanity. Progress comes with a cost: for Teddy, that means facing his culpability in the death of his family.
It is important to note that Lehane is not rejecting the past in order to lionize the future. While Lehane believes forward progress is necessary for everyone’s benefit, he also argues that the past holds value. The past and future are dependent on one another, even though they cannot occupy the same space. Maggie, one of Ashecliffe’s patients, explains the necessity of this tension perfectly, saying that past and present are cyclical, “‘like the moon cycles around the earth’” (130).
How Perception Shapes Truth
People often think of reality as an objective truth. They assume that there is one reality, and that everyone experiences it simultaneously. Lehane challenges this idea in Shutter Island by exploring the idea of the truth. He does this by telling the story from a limited-third-person point of view. Readers only get the inner thoughts and feelings of one character—Teddy Daniels—and his perspective colors every other character, interaction, and plot twist. This technique limits readers’ access to information; they can only know what Teddy knows, and see what Teddy sees.
By narrowing readers’ viewpoints to a single character, Lehane demonstrates how perception shapes the truth. Teddy initially arrives at Ashecliffe Hospital to investigate a disappearance and find a definitive answer to what happened to Rachel Solando. Although Teddy’s mission becomes more complex as the novel unfolds, he maintains that his sole purpose on the island “‘is about the truth’” (236). However, there does not seem to be one single truth; rather, there are multiple versions of the truth, all of which are valid depending on readers’ perspective. On the one hand, there is Teddy’s truth: he is a U.S. Marshal who has come to Shutter Island to investigate Rachel’s disappearance, find Andrew Laeddis, and expose Ashecliffe’s illegal human experiments.
But the further Teddy digs into the case, the more precarious his truth becomes. The “real” Rachel Solando tells him Cawley wants to convince people that Dolores’ death has driven Teddy insane. All of Teddy’s protests will be taken as proof of his delusions and Cawley will lock him away. Lehane shows readers that the truth is not set in stone. This idea is also known as cognitive relativism, which is a philosophical theory that argues an individual’s perspective shapes the truth. In other words, the truth is subjective.
Violence and Trauma
Shutter Island draws a close connection between violence and psychological trauma, and Lehane is concerned with how trauma has rippling impacts throughout communities. Teddy’s life has been steeped in violence. He lost his father at a young age in a fishing accident, and his body was never recovered. He then enters World War II, where he makes a decryption mistake that leaves half a battalion of U.S. soldiers dead. He gets demoted to the front lines, where he liberates a Nazi concentration camp and witnesses horrific cruelty firsthand. Teddy cannot escape violence after the war, either. His new job as a U.S. Marshal sometimes requires him to kill criminals, and all of this is compounded by his wife’s untimely death. Each incidence of violence leaves a mark on Teddy’s psyche, and readers see him struggling under the weight of his guilt and grief.
In many ways, the hurricane that hits Shutter Island serves as a perfect metaphor for the impact violence and trauma. Just like the strengthening storm, each act of violence increases Teddy’s psychological turmoil until his mind breaks, leaving devastation in its wake. Lehane argues that physical and mental trauma has a cumulative impact, and as Cawley explains, there is a limit to the amount of violence “‘a man can carry before it breaks him’” (192).
But Lehane argues that a culture of violence, along with unaddressed trauma, has even more dangerous cascading effects. Teddy’s experiences in World War II drive him to drink so much that Dolores wonders if he is “‘ever sober anymore’” (87). He drinks to dull the pain, which makes him even more distant. When Dolores’ mental illness worsens, Teddy cannot give her the support she needs. Instead, he ignores her problems just like he ignores his own, and Dolores spirals out of control and kills her children. Teddy’s inability to cope with his own trauma inflicts trauma on those around him as well. Lehane argues that violence creates a tragic feedback loop: without acknowledgment and treatment, violence begets trauma, which creates more violence in a disastrous cycle.
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