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Abstract
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The exploration of trauma and fragmented identity in Shutter Island is essential for understanding the psychological mechanisms through which the human mind defends itself against unbearable experience. This research delves into how Dennis Lehane illustrates the collapse of coherent selfhood under the weight of repressed guilt and loss, drawing on Sigmund Freud’s theories of repression, defense, and the structural unconscious. Understanding these elements is critical for uncovering how literature not only mirrors clinical phenomena but also deepens public and scholarly discourse on mental suffering (Freud, The Ego and the Id 19). As Freud emphasizes, “the repressed insists on return, disguised in symptoms, dreams, and slips” (Freud, Introductory Lectures 235), and Shutter Island stages this return with narrative precision.
In Shutter Island, the theme of repression emerges as the central mechanism of psychic survival, as Teddy Daniels constructs an elaborate fantasy to evade the trauma of having caused his family’s death. His delusional identity is not pathological deviation but, as Caruth argues, “a necessary strategy for living with what cannot be integrated” (Caruth 62). This fragmentation reflects Freud’s concept of dissociation, where the ego splits to preserve itself—a process increasingly recognized in contemporary trauma theory (van der Kolk 94). Studies have shown that unresolved trauma often manifests as identity confusion, somatic symptoms, and narrative incoherence, reinforcing the idea that memory is not stored, but enacted (Herman 47).
The dynamics of resistance within Shutter Island further highlight the struggle between defensive fantasy and painful truth. Lehane illustrates how Teddy’s investigative persona functions as both shield and symptom—a desperate attempt to retain moral coherence in the face of self-condemnation (Lehane 288). Freud argues that “the ego employs denial not to erase reality, but to delay its emotional impact” (Inhibitions, Sym
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