In the end of "Shutter Island," it's revealed that the main character, Teddy Daniels, is actually Andrew Laeddis, a patient at the mental institution. He has been experiencing delusions and hallucinations, which were orchestrated by the staff to help him come to terms with the truth of his past.
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.
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.
In 1954, U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels and his new partner Chuck Aule travel to Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, Boston Harbor, to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando, a patient of the hospital who had previously drowned her three children.
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.
SHUTTER ISLAND Breakdown | Ending Explained, Easter Eggs, Hidden Details & Things You Missed
Was he faking it at the end of Shutter Island?
In the end of "Shutter Island," it's revealed that the main character, Teddy Daniels, is actually Andrew Laeddis, a patient at the mental institution. He has been experiencing delusions and hallucinations, which were orchestrated by the staff to help him come to terms with the truth of his past.
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.
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.
Cawley tells Teddy that he himself is in fact Andrew Laeddis (an anagram of Edward Daniels) and that he has been a patient at Shutter Island for two years for murdering his wife, Dolores Chanal (an anagram of Rachel Solando), after she murdered their three children.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Was Andrew faking it at the end of Shutter Island reddit?
Now in the movie adaptation, he likely is faking insanity for the lobotomy at the end, as director Martin Scorsese includes the movie-only line spoken by Andrew/Teddy “Which would be worse: To live as a monster, or to die as a good man?”, suggesting he is lucid.
Water, on the other hand, represents the reality of what happened to his wife and children. This is why Andrew/Teddy has a consistent aversion to water throughout the film. Using cinematography in subtle ways, these symbols are present throughout the film to allude to the fact that Teddy is living in a dream world.
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."
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.
Andrew created the Teddy persona as a result of his guilt for not helping his wife sooner, and the events of the film were all part of a role-play designed by Cawley to help Andrew accept reality. Chuck was in fact a hospital staff member called Dr. Lester Sheehan, and a nurse played the role of Rachel Soldano.
Teddy begins to face reality when he meets the woman he believes is Rachel Solando. In the cave, she prods him to reflect on his time on the island, but he doesn't quite put the pieces together until he meets George Noyce in the lighthouse.
In Shutter Island, Teddy is haunted by a perpetual "rain" (i.e. emotional trauma), and so his subconscious blocks out water because it reminds him of the day he lost his three children and murdered his wife. The invisible glass woman, Mrs. Kearns, shows up again at the 97-minute mark in Shutter Island.
Parents need to know that Shutter Island is a very intense thriller, with some highly disturbing imagery, including drowned children, Nazi concentration camps, piles of corpses, blood, guns, dark prison corridors, and bizarre, scary nightmares and hallucinations.
So, finding the cave, was in itself a manifestation of Teddy's own mind using "survival instincts" and the rats were most possibly, remnants of his past life during his days at the German Camp, where he may or may not have been a part of and witnessed mass shooting and the pile of the corpses laid alongside the path.
