Shutter Island Symbolism

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Teddy Daniels or rather Andrew Laeddis is a brave soldier in the movie, Shutter Island, who has faced a considerable amount of trauma in his life. His trauma has molded him into an individual he is today. To elaborate, his agony has brought forth several internal conflicts within him, forcing him to change his true character. In order to ease the affliction caused by his experiences, he manages to create a façade to conceal the truth and suppress his guilt.

This is depicted in the drawing in the hollow head; specifically, the symbol where the sun rays beat down on Andrew Laeddis 's hunched back while he sits on a bench overlooking to the darkness, or otherwise the shadow he casts. This symbolizes how he is not willing to take accountability
The drawing of him in the hollow head shows how he has isolated himself from everyone else as he chose to sit in solitude. This symbolizes how he has lost everyone he has loved such as his family. Through this traumatizing experience, Teddy is no longer able to trust people. For example, he is hesitant in believing that he is a patient in the mental hospital; or the fact that he does not believe what George says in Ward C. In addition to that, his solitude shows that he only trusts people who are not living such as his wife. This impedes him from confiding to other people as he is not willing to let go of his wife. This drawing mainly depicts how he is far beyond trusting people as no one is near
Andrew is illustrated in the symbol as the individual who is walking on one of the two paths he could have chosen from. However, he looks back from where he has come from; overall symbolizing his yearning to change his past actions. For instance, his daughter constantly reappears in his hallucinations and dreams stating how he should have saved her and all of their family. He replies by repeating how he actually could have rescued her and how he is sorry. Eventually, he would begin to tear up, depicting how he wished he could have changed his actions in order to prevent the current situation he is in today. Not only does this symbolize regret, but him not looking forward in the drawing shows how he has no hope. This evident when he is asked whether he believes in god. His response to this was, “Have you ever seen a death camp?” This indicates how he has no faith in god as terrible events take place in the

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