Only Teddy is not a real person but a delusion created by inmate Andrew Laeddis. The ending of “Shutter Island” reveals that DiCaprio's character is a patient himself, committed to the Shutter Island facility after murdering his wife (Michelle Williams) because she went insane and killed their children.
However, in a radical twist, we find that Teddy is himself a patient at the asylum. He suffers from Delusional Disorder, creating a false world to escape the dark reality of his past. Shutter Island is one of the many films that present the ethical considerations of psychological treatment to a mainstream audience.
The ending of Shutter Island seems ambiguous to many people, but on second viewing, it's pretty clear-cut. Teddy wakes up to the reality that he is actually Andrew Laeddis, though he is warned by Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan that he has regressed into his fantasy world before.
It turns out that Andrew is actually an inmate at Ashecliffe, and that the film's events up until this point — Cawley's allowing Andrew to play the role of Teddy — were designed to cure his insanity that stemmed from murdering his depressed wife after she drowned their children at their lake house.
Why does Leonardo DiCaprio have a bandaid in Shutter Island?
It is unclear why he wears the band-aid, but it stays with him until nearly the end of the film. He only gets rid of it while taking a shower after John Cawley informs him that he actually showed up on the island alone.
The Big Clue Everyone Missed Early In Shutter Island
Was he hallucinating in Shutter Island?
Shutter Island is a film that shows so many evidences of hallucination experienced by the main character, Teddy Daniels. Teddy Daniels had bad experiences in the past which lead him to change his identity in order to forget his past.
Andrew's last line of dialogue, and his failure to respond to being called Teddy, has led many fans to speculate that Andrew had not actually regressed, and was voluntarily submitting himself to a lobotomy so he did not have to live with his sins and the monster he had become.
Teddy (Edward) Daniels is killer Andrew Laeddis (the former name an anagram to disguise the latter), while the woman whose disappearance from the asylum he has been investigating, Rachel Solando (another anagram), is really his wife Dolores Chanal, whom he made disappear.
Obvious green screen images when Teddy and Warden are in a jeep coming back from the hidden cave. Obvious green screen images when on the ferry boat and when entering the island on a jeep passing in front of several buildings.
Some believe that the Rachel Solando in the cave was real; others believe that she was a figment of Teddy's imagination. It is possible that he fabricated the Rachel Solando in the cave, because what she says was everything he wanted to hear, which gives him a reason to find everyone suspicious on Shutter Island.
What did George tell Teddy while they were in Ward C?
Teddy & Chuck get into building C. Teddy finds George Noyce, He tells Teddy that the only way he can save Noyce is to forget his wife and Laeddis. Noyce tells him that Laeddis is no longer in C building, but that they have taken him to the lighthouse, where they are planning to do a lobotomy on him.
In this thriller, Lehane created a fictitious hospital island with nefarious happenings. Though the later film used Peddocks Island as the backdrop, Lehane's true inspiration likely comes from other islands that have long histories in institutions and social services, such as Rainsford Island and Long Island.
He explains that Andrew Laeddis is an anagram of Edward Daniels and that he murdered his wife, Dolores Chanal (an anagram of Rachel Solando), two years before after she drowned their three children during a manic episode. This is the answer of the code "the law of 4" and Laeddis is the 67th patient at Ashecliffe.
What was wrong with Teddy's wife 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.
There is no Rachel Solando. There is no Chuck, at least as we see him. It's all a trick on the person we know as Teddy for the entirety of the story, right up until the end. Teddy, not the arsonist of his fantasy, was the one who killed his wife after she had drowned their three children.
What does the ending of Shutter Island mean on Reddit?
Can we talk about the ending of Shutter Island? So the movie makes it pretty clear that Teddy was crazy the entire time and that the whole movie was an experiment; a last effort to bring him back to sanity. All of the references point to him being crazy and it was a nice twist at the end of the movie.
When Teddy dreams about Laeddis, Laeddis sits beside the fire in an armchair. Teddy's version of Laeddis; a scarred and disfigured man, then lights a match and proceeds to light Teddy's cigarette. This act of Teddy accepting the light from Laeddis is symbolic of Teddy accepting this fantasy as reality.
DiCaprio's character is part of a role-playing experiment to help him overcome repressed memories, which is why the glass appears to be invisible. From Teddy's perspective, he blocks out the water because it reminds him of a traumatic experience.
To keep quiet for the sake of all those he could still save if the results of the roleplay are a success. "Shhh. Keep quiet. You can't run from what you've done, but that's okay."
Cawley explains that Teddy is actually Andrew Laeddis, their "most dangerous patient." He was sent to the island after murdering his manic-depressive wife, Dolores.
In the story told that Andrew is a veteran U.S marshal in World War II who became getting a mental disorder because he has some traumatic events after the war in Dachau. There were some main events those to be traumatic and brought him to indicated his schizophrenia symptoms and became delusional acute.
However, by Shutter Island's ending, viewers have learned Chuck is actually Dr. Sheehan, Teddy's doctor, who Teddy believed had left the island after Rachel's disappearance. It turns out Teddy is the patient and created a delusion to escape the crime he committed.
Edward is saying he would rather be lobotomized, which he is comparing to the death of his old self, than accept that he is really Edward and live his whole life knowing that he is a murderer. RELATED: How & Why The Shutter Island Movie Changed The Book's Ending.
Even though it was released over 14 years ago, this Martin Scorsese movie takes the top stop as the film that has most people reaching for their phones at the end, with over 27,000 searches a month. It's not like legendary director Martin Scorsese to confuse audiences, but it appears Shutter Island did just that.
Climax: Teddy/Andrew finally remembers that his wife burned their apartment and drowned their three children—and that he shot her. Climactic Moment: Teddy/Andrew speaks to “Chuck” in ambiguous terms that seem to indicate he has relapsed into his delusions—which leaves no other option for him than a lobotomy.
