Andrew Laeddis took up drinking after the horrors he witnessed at Dachau, which meant he failed to seek mental health for Dolores who burned down their city apartment in a suicide attempt. Instead he moved the family to a lake house, where Dolores' mental issues led to her drowning the three children.
In the movie "Shutter Island," Teddy's wife, Dolores, kills their children during a moment of mental crisis. Dolores was bipolar, and her mental illness led her to commit this tragic act [1].
What is the significance of the water in Shutter Island?
Scorsese deploys water and water imagery throughout the film to denote tragic events from Teddy's past, namely the drowning of his three children in a lake. After the film's first scene, Teddy is trapped inside Ashecliffe, surrounded by water, and later hallucinates that a massive rainstorm has engulfed the island.
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.
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.
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.
Mrs. Kearns writes "run" on the paper she slips to Teddy because she knows he has an opportunity to escape while they're doing the whole role-play experiment. It's also why she sounds "coached" about what to tell Teddy — she has been.
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.
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.
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. It turns out that Dolores drowned their three children.
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.
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.
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.
In 1954, widower U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, go on a ferry boat to Shutter Island, the home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient, Rachel Solando (who was incarcerated for drowning her three children).
What did Dolores do to the kids in Shutter Island?
Dolores Laediss (née Chanal), also known as Dolores Daniels and Rachel Solado, is the main antagonist of the 2010 psychological thriller film Shutter Island. She was the manic-depressive wife of Andrew Laediss/Teddy Daniels, who set their apartment on fire and eventually drowned their three children.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why did he call him Teddy at the end of Shutter Island?
Instead he moved the family to the lake house where she tragically killed their children. Andrew then created the persona of Teddy out of guilt for not helping his wife, and Cawley designed a role-play around it an in attempt to get Andrew to accept reality.
