Shutter Island is full of jarring twists and turns that can be hard to keep up with, and it may have left some fans wondering if the film's protagonist, Teddy, really killed his wife. Shutter Island is probably one of the most thrilling movies ever made, but the meticulously crafted plot can sometimes be hard to follow. The complex nature of the film, however, makes it all the more rewarding when all the pieces finally come together.
Shutter Island follows the tragic story of Teddy Daniels as he travels to a psychiatric facility on Shutter Island where he hopes to solve the case of a runaway patient, Rachel Solando. Teddy struggles with migraines and violent flashbacks throughout the film. He eventually reveals that he has taken this case because he's after an arsonist who burned down his apartment, killing his wife. Teddy chases all kinds of leads and descends deeper into hysteria, only to finally be told in Shutter Island's ending that he is a patient on the island, not the marshal he thinks he is, and that his headaches are a symptom of withdrawal from antipsychotic medication.
Teddy Killed His Wife Dolores After She Drowned Their Children In Shutter Island
Teddy ultimately finds out that it was he who killed his wife, shooting her dead after she drowned their three children in a lake. Rachel Solando, its turns out, is a figment of his imagination, and her name is just an anagram for his wife's name, Dolores Chanal. Teddy suffered a psychotic break after the deaths of his wife and children, and the whole investigation was just an elaborate hoax to try to help him his past. Teddy's search for the arsonist, Andrew Laeddis, turns out to be a search for himself, for Teddy's real name is actually Andrew Laeddis.
Teddy, or Andrew, became so broken by grief after murdering his wife that he blocks out all memory of his past. His trauma leads him to invent a false reality to live in because he cannot face what he's done. His doctors decide their last chance to save him from a lobotomy is to embrace his delusion and try to maneuver him into discovering the truth on his own. Shutter Island's ending is somewhat ambiguous, but Andrew's final line has caused many fans to speculate that the experiment worked, but Andrew wants to die as Teddy, rather than live as himself, prompting him to feign regression and accept lobotomy.
Why Did Dolores Kill Her Children In Shutter Island?
Dolores was bipolar, and she killed her children during a moment of mental crisis. Dolores had been living with bipolar for quite a while in Shutter Island, and it turns out that Andrew refused to seek help for his wife, instead deciding to ignore her struggles even when she burned down their apartment. Part of the guilt Andrew feels in Shutter Island comes from the fact that he drank his way through his marriage and never tried to seek help for his wife. Andrew's poor handling of his wife's needs probably exacerbated her struggles, and led, in part, to the death of their children.
