Shutter Island

Psychoanalysis
It is clear that Leonardo Dicaprios character Andrew Laeddis or Teddy Daniels in the film
Shutter Island is in fact a crazy person. Leos conscious character Teddy believes he is a
Federal Marshall and together with the help of his partner Chuck is in search of a missing
patient named Rachel Solando. However in reality Teddy is Andrew Laeddis a.k.a patient 67
and Chuck his partner is Andrewss primary Therapist a.k.a the missing Dr. Sheehan.
In reality Teddy is a patient on Shutter Island. He became a patient because he went through a
serious trauma; his wife Dolores drowned all of his children and he murdered her in a fit of rage.
Dr. Sheehan and Dr. Cawley believe they can pull him back to reality by enacting an elaborate
role-playing game, making him realize he is patient 67 and that his fantasy life as Teddy
Daniels isnt real.
The conscious state of Leos character is Teddy Daniels and the unconscious state is Andrew
Laeddis. Throughout the movie we see the unconscious mind battling the conscious for freedom.
Teddy wants to believe that Dolores did murder his children and he murdered Dolores but his
guilt and sadness drag him safely back to his fantasy world.
Examples of this battle are his dreams and hallucinations. Throughout the movie he continuously
dreams of his daughter Rachel and his wife Dolores and is tormented by hallucinations. His pain
is obvious in one of his dreams when his daughter says to him You should have saved me.
When he sees Dolores she pushes him to keep trying to find out who Andrew Laeddis is,
convincing him that he is the one who murdered her.
A turning point in the battle is when Teddy gets confronted by George Noyce, an inmate who
knew him before this role-play. Teddy goes lurking about Ward C, and finds George; George
desperately tries to convince him that he is Andrew Laeddis. When Andrew comments on
Georges face being badly beaten, all George says is you did this to me. Andrew did in fact do
this to George; a couple weeks prior to this experiment George had accidentally called Teddy
Andrew. Andrew had a mental break down and beat George half to death. As a result of this
interaction Teddys unconscious mind gains ground.
My favourite example of this internal battle happens when Teddy is searching Rachels room for
clues of her escape and finds the piece of paper that has written on it The rule of 4who is
number 67? At the very end of the movie you find out the answers to those riddles. The rule of
4 reveals that Andrew Laeddiss name and Dolores Chanal are anagrams for Edward Daniels
and Rachel Solando. And finally he learns he is number 67.

Throughout the film Teddy expresses feelings of guilt, sadness, and desire. In his dreams of
Dolores, all he feels is guilt that he couldnt save her, sadness that she is gone from him, and
desire to get her back. At great example of his guilt is in the very last scene of the film is when
Teddy and Chuck are on the steps outside. And Teddy turns to Chuck and says Is it better to
live as a monster, or die as a good man? this line means he would rather be mind-wiped as
Teddy Daniels, than have to live with the guilt of being Andrew Laeddis. In the battle of
unconscious vs. conscious, Andrew was victorious the role-playing experiment worked. He
remembered his real life as Andrew Laeddis, the man whose wife murdered their children and he
murdered her in rage. But ironically being so overcome by sadness and guilt, he made the
conscious decision to erase his mind.
When it comes to the psychoanalysis iceberg metaphor, I believe Teddy Daniels represents the
Ego. Throughout the movie Teddy tries to find a logical and realistic answer to everything
strange that happens on Shutter Island. When he speaks to George about where Andrew is, Teddy
has a logistical answer for every question George fires at him. When trying to find Rachel
Solando, he looks at every clue, every story, and finds an answer for it.
Dolores represents the ID because she is a woman who suffers from depression, schizophrenia,
mood disorders and anxiety. She set their city apartment on fire because the voices in her head
told her too. She also drowned her three children as a result of her depression. Near the end of
the film when Teddy finds out about Dolores drowning their children, she says to him Set me
free. When Teddy hears that, he murders her. I believe she is the ID because in the film she is
part of Teddys unconscious, she isnt real. And she manipulates Teddy throughout the entire
film.
Finally, I believe Dr. Sheehan and Dr. Cawley represent the Superego. During this period of
history it was believed that if you wanted to take care of a mentally ill person you would either
give them medication or put them through surgery like a lobotomy. But Dr. Sheehan and Dr.
Cawley believed that they could get through to Teddy by looking at his mental state. And by
letting him work through this fantasy on his own, he could heal his mind. They believed that
actually talking and working with the patients they could be cured or at least helped in a better
way than medication or surgery. They went against a social norm at that time because they
believed they were right, and their treatment was better than physically harming the patients.