Shutter Island

The novel begins with an excerpted journal entry dated May 3rd, 1993 from Dr. Lester Sheehan, a former psychologist who worked at Ashecliffe Hospital, a government facility for the criminally insane. Sheehan explains that Ashecliffe Hospital was located on Shutter Island, a small island off the United States mainland, and was housed in old military barracks that dated back to the Civil War. While Ashecliffe Hospital might not “look like much” from a distance, Sheehan’s entry makes it clear that he is still haunted by his experiences there (3). With his wife dying of a terminal illness and his own mental faculties starting to fade, Sheehan decides to share the events of September 1954. The rest of Shutter Island tells the story of four people—Teddy Daniels, Dolores Chanal, Rachel Soldano, and Andrew Laeddis—and the “havoc they wreaked” over the course of four days on Shutter Island (4).