What Does The Ending Of Shutter Island Really Mean?

Ending Theory #2: Andrew's Mind Retreats Into Fantasy To Cope

Shutter Island and Christopher Nolan's Inception are spookily similar, in ways beyond the immediately obvious. Yes, they were both released in 2010, both star Leonardo DiCaprio, both explore dream logic and blur the line between reality and fantasy, and both end on an ambiguous note, but - going deeper - they are both also about unreliable narrators haunted by the ghost of their spouse, for which they are each in some way culpable. Yet another reason why Inception and Shutter Island act as companion pieces: it's suggested the lead characters in both have been seduced by fantasy, which they use to escape their realities. Both are afraid of confronting their past and are obsessed with their professions, professions which dominate their lives and function as distractions from the demons they refuse to face. Here is where the paths of the two films' protagonists diverge, though: where Inception's Cobb in the end chooses to let go and accept reality, it's implied that Shutter Island's Teddy Daniels instead chooses to forego reality and embrace his fantasy world at the close. Dr. Cawley in the lighthouse makes clear that this has happened already: he and Dr. Sheehan broke through with Andrew nine months before, only to end up with Andrew again falsely convinced he is Teddy Daniels, US Marshal. There's nothing to definitively suggest this hasn't just happened again, nine months later.