Shutter Island vs. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Despite the fact that I have been so incredibly busy and overwhelmed with homework this week, I still managed to take a little time for myself to watch a movie. So, instead of the usual comedy or typical cliché drama, I decided to with a mystery/psychological thriller: Shutter Island. Not only did this suspenseful and perplexing film immediately spark my interest in its ominous and eerie nature, but it also displayed some similar qualities as the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey.

Appropriately titled, this movie is about a U.S. marshal, Teddy Daniels, and his partner Chuck Aule, who travel to Ashecliff Hospital on Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a criminally insane patient, Rachel Solando. Shortly after their arrival on this ghostly and foreboding island, Teddy finds himself questioning the strange doctors who are in charge of the hospital and its mentally-ill prisoners, including the psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley, who seems very suspicious from the start. In an effort to solve this mysterious case, Teddy finds himself trapped on the island by a violent storm, as he becomes conflicted with disturbing instances of his past as a former WWII veteran, while also suffering from delusions of his deceased wife Dolores, whom he believes was killed by a man named Andrew Laeddis. The tension mounts when Teddy finds himself discovering clues to the mystery of Rachel Solando and what he believes to be the secret conspiracies behind the hospital’s classified experiments. As the thrilling plot unravels, Teddy’s paranoia grows until he is ultimately faced with the truth behind his past as he begins to question everyone and everything on this island—including his own sanity.

Like this creepy and riveting movie, Cuckoo’s Nest possesses a similar mental hospital setting that seems to drive the characters more insane and psychotic than they were to begin with. Although Shutter Island and Cuckoo’s Nest encompass very different plots and themes, there are still some prevalent parallels between the two works.

First of all, the main characters, Teddy in Shutter Island and Randle McMurphy in Cuckoo’s Nest, both seem to be rather sane and rational initially, until they are somehow forced into confinement at a mental hospital, as they are surrounded with patients who are mentally-ill (and prisoners in Teddy’s case). In this respect, I think many aspects of Cuckoo’s Nest resemble those of the film as well, except that the movie is much darker and more peculiar than the novel. In any case, the chief of the hospital in Shutter Island, Dr. Cawley, is much like Nurse Ratched, the oppressive and heartless woman who demands authority and runs the mental hospital in Cuckoo’s Nest. Both of these characters come off as though they are trying to help the patients recover, when in reality, they are both secretly tormenting the patients through their domineering and manipulative ways.

Additionally, in both the book and the movie, the two main characters undergo some form of self-realization and personality change that both mount to completely unexpected plot twists, thus altering the endings. In the movie, Teddy is essentially on the path of self-discovery, as he is forced to accept that he is Andrew Laeddis, his wife’s murderer, and that he is actually one of the disturbed and psychotic patients of Ashecliff Hospital. This surprising and completely unexpected plot twist led me to reconsider and question the whole movie, as I did for Cuckoo’s Nest, when McMurphy is forcibly lobotomized under Nurse Ratched’s orders, for his rebellion and aggressive behavior, in a final effort to exert her tyrannical powers and authority over McMurphy. In both cases, the movie and the novel, the main characters undergo a prefrontal lobotomy in the end, which ultimately symbolizes the demise and the defeat of both Teddy Daniels and Randle McMurphy.