Dolores is very attractive, a little bit emotional and somewhat needy. Dolores Chanal Davidson/Laeddisįrom Teddy's recollections of Dolores we learn that she was captivating and that he knew she was 'the one' the moment he set eyes on her. Andrew is a delusional man who believes everything he is saying and whose grasp of actual facts only comes to him in dreams. Cawley asserts that Teddy and Laeddis are one and the same-both part of an elaborate fiction created by Andrew because he could not come to terms with having killed his wife after she murdered their three children. He is the mysterious untraceable prisoner for whom Teddy is searching. Andrew LaeddisĪndrew Laeddis killed Teddy's wife Dolores with apparently no motive. He has apparently been carrying on the same charade since his arrival.

It turns out that Rachel Solando, the 'missing patient,' is a figment of his imagination, created because he is unable to accept what Dolores did and overwhelmed with guilt about his failure to take her mental problems seriously. Cawley's asserts that Teddy is, in fact, Andrew Laeddis and was in fact committed to Shutter Island himself two years previously for killing his wife after she murdered their three children. It is very easy to see why he believes something dangerous and underhanded is going on, which is why it is a shock when Dr.

He reads people well and pursues leads to their logical conclusion. Throughout the novel, Teddy appears to be a diligent and skilled investigator. Later, though, Teddy felt guilt about shooting unarmed men and decided that in the future he would shoot to kill only if his own life depended on it. The prisoners there had been tortured in the most brutal and atrocious way, and the soldiers who liberated the camp and saw this with their own eyes had no qualms about lining up the SS officers responsible and shooting them. Teddy misses Dolores badly and dreams about her almost every night, and still uses what he thinks she would do in certain situations as his guide.įor most of his adult life, Teddy was a soldier of some description but found himself a changed man after being part of the liberation force at Dachau concentration camp. Teddy also has a motive of his own in visiting the island he wants to find a patient called Andrew Laeddis who was responsible for killing Teddy's wife, Dolores. A decorated soldier, he is a US Marshall dispatched to Shutter Island by Senator Hurly to investigate what is really going on there and also to help with the search for a patient who has gone missing.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane