Shutter island free essay sample

Julia Kristevas 1982 account of abjection usually has connections with cinema in relation to the horror film, a genre in which scenes of blood and death feature prominently, exemplifying some of the threats to subjectivity that constitute the abject. In contrast, this paper locates abjection in the filmic institution, where challenges to subjectivity arise through spatial restriction, extreme control or mental illness, and invariably lead to visual chaos and narrative disorder. These traits seem universal to the American institution film – the ‘institution film’ being, for the purposes of this paper, one in which the institution is central to narrative organisation. Indeed, such patterns of transgression appear regularly throughout the genres well-established history, being conspicuous in high-security settings. It is therefore relevant to diverge from typical Foucauldian analyses of the institution to a theoretical model that centres on the implications of repression. Kristevas 1982 theory of abjection provides such a model, which this paper utilises to explain how fictional institutions affect subjectivity. We will write a custom essay sample on Shutter island or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This paper argues that as sites of extreme control, such institutions become abject spaces, abjection manifesting within both the mise-en-scene and cinematography. In relation to the asylum, abjection further emerges in the nature of mental illness. Referring to Scorseses Shutter Island (2010), I correlate abjection with the loss of identity that the films protagonist experiences, considering how abjection visually manifests in the physical spaces of the asylum, and propels the narrative trajectory forward. Julia Kristevas 1982 account of abjection usually has connections with cinema in relation to the horror film, a genre in which scenes of blood and death feature prominently, exemplifying some of the threats to subjectivity that constitute the abject. In contrast, this paper locates abjection in the filmic institution, where challenges to subjectivity arise through spatial restriction, extreme control or mental illness, and invariably lead to visual chaos and narrative disorder. These traits seem universal to the American institution film – the ‘institution film’ being, for the purposes of this paper, one in which the institution is central to narrative organisation. Indeed, such patterns of transgression appear regularly throughout the genres well-established history, being conspicuous in high-security settings. It is therefore relevant to diverge from typical Foucauldian analyses of the institution to a theoretical model that centres on the implications of repression. Kristevas 1982 theory of abjection provides such a model, which this paper utilises to explain how fictional institutions affect subjectivity. This paper argues that as sites of extreme control, such institutions become abject spaces, abjection manifesting within both the mise-en-scene and cinematography. In relation to the asylum, abjection further emerges in the nature of mental illness. Referring to Scorseses Shutter Island (2010), I correlate abjection with the loss of identity that the films protagonist experiences, considering how abjection visually manifests in the physical spaces of the asylum, and propels the narrative trajectory forward. Julia Kristevas 1982 account of abjection usually has connections with cinema in relation to the horror film, a genre in which scenes of blood and death feature prominently, exemplifying some of the threats to subjectivity that constitute the abject. In contrast, this paper locates abjection in the filmic institution, where challenges to subjectivity arise through spatial restriction, extreme control or mental illness, and invariably lead to visual chaos and narrative disorder. These traits seem universal to the American institution film – the ‘institution film’ being, for the purposes of this paper, one in which the institution is central to narrative organisation. Indeed, such patterns of transgression appear regularly throughout the genres well-established history, being conspicuous in high-security settings. It is therefore relevant to diverge from typical Foucauldian analyses of the institution to a theoretical model that centres on the implications of repression. Kristevas 1982 theory of abjection provides such a model, which this paper utilises to explain how fictional institutions affect subjectivity. This paper argues that as sites of extreme control, such institutions become abject spaces, abjection manifesting within both the mise-en-scene and cinematography. In relation to the asylum, abjection further emerges in the nature of mental illness. Referring to Scorseses Shutter Island (2010), I correlate abjection with the loss of identity that the films protagonist experiences, considering how abjection visually manifests in the physical spaces of the asylum, and propels the narrative trajectory forward. Julia Kristevas 1982 account of abjection usually has connections with cinema in relation to the horror film, a genre in which scenes of blood and death feature prominently, exemplifying some of the threats to subjectivity that constitute the abject. In contrast, this paper locates abjection in the filmic institution, where challenges to subjectivity arise through spatial restriction, extreme control or mental illness, and invariably lead to visual chaos and narrative disorder. These traits seem universal to the American institution film – the ‘institution film’ being, for the purposes of this paper, one in which the institution is central to narrative organisation. Indeed, such patterns of transgression appear regularly throughout the genres well-established history, being conspicuous in high-security settings. It is therefore relevant to diverge from typical Foucauldian analyses of the institution to a theoretical model that centres on the implications of repression. Kristevas 1982 theory of abjection provides such a model, which this paper utilises to explain how fictional institutions affect subjectivity. This paper argues that as sites of extreme control, such institutions become abject spaces, abjection manifesting within both the mise-en-scene and cinematography. In relation to the asylum, abjection further emerges in the nature of mental illness. Referring to Scorseses Shutter Island (2010), I correlate abjection with the loss of identity that the films protagonist experiences, considering how abjection visually manifests in the physical spaces of the asylum, and propels the narrative trajectory forward. Shutter Island free essay sample If you have seen the movie Shutter Island, you will notice that topic is according to scrip in this film. Andrew Laeddis was a soldier who joined the World War Two and killed Germany prisoners of war in death camp. Then he became a U. S. Marshal in Boston, and became alcoholics and ignored his suicidal-wife. Her wife burned their apartment then drowning their three kids in the back yard. Andrew killed his wife to â€Å"set her free† and burned their house. According to what Dr. Cawley explain his symptoms at the very end: â€Å"You crime is terrible, one you can’t forgive yourself for, so you invented another self. You create a story which you are not a murderer, you’re a hero, still a U. S Marshal, only here because of a case†. This movie is based on a mental hospital/prison, so most of people in it have one kind or another abnormality. We will write a custom essay sample on Shutter Island or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page But I only focus on Andrew’s disorders. Most mental illness patient will hold multiple disorders, like he also has persecution mania and proclivity for violence. Before diagnosis his disorder, I think the background knowledge and social factors introduction for that period is necessary. The World War Two was end by 1945 and this story happened in 1954. During that time, biological perspective and psychopharmacology perspective for abnormal psychology’s treatment had a debate/war. Former emphasized use surgical intervention: psychosurgery, like Tran’s orbital lobotomy or chlorpromazine drug, to solve the problem thorough and quick. But the latter believe that spend time and money to make people â€Å"unless happy and peace† is worthy. Andrew is a serious DID patient who suffered the war and fratricidal, also with propensity to violence and paranoia. This movie describes the last psychopharmacological treatment, role play treatment, which cued him finally. According to the DSM-IV-TR 5-axis to diagnosis his symptom: l   Axis I: Schizophrenia and PTSD. DID, single episode. This is obvious in the whole movie. l   Axis II: paranoid personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. l   Axis III: the movie does not mention if he overdose or not. But he had been used chlorpromazine for two years and his hands will shake badly when he stopped taking the pills. Also, his migraine may be caused by medical conditions, too. This is not clear in the movie). l   Axis IV: stressor from storm or water will cause migraine or vomit. Any other things about Nazi/German will cause flash back to the death camp and remember the Jewish music at that day. l   Axis V: I am affair that Andrew’s GAF score is lower than 30. This is so unfortunate that Andrew has so many problems. The film is only two hours but we can see the problem from his behaviors. According to diagnosis from movie: â€Å"patient is highly intelligent, highly delusional decorated army veteran, present for the liberation of Dachau former U. S. Marshal. Known proclivity from violence, shows no remorse for his crime because he denies the crime ever took place. Highly developed and fantastical narratives which preclude facing the truth of his actions. † First, he is obviously suffered dissociative identical disorder. He creates another self to avoid the trauma. That what the whole movie talking about. Here I had love to mention Defense mechanism which is mentioned several times in movie. Defense mechanisms are largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt. Psychology: Themes amp; Variations 8E Briefer Version, Wayne Weiten, P382~383) People use mainly six ways to avoid negative emotions: repression, projection, displacement, reaction formation, regression, rationalization and identification. He use repression to keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious lead him only thinks about the horrible past when he dreaming. He dreamed about his wi fe and house at the first time, and the Dachau camp at the second time. After he waked up, he became Marshal again. He use identification to imagine he is still a marshal and never killed anybody to avoid his guilt. He used projection to create another women named Rachel Solando (According to law of 4, Rachel Solando is equal to Dolores Chanal, which is the name of his wife before they married). She â€Å"drown her three kids one by one in the lack at back yard†. He put his memory to another unreal person to protect himself. (As I mentioned law of 4 already, you may notice that the Marshal named Edward Daniels is himself, because this name is equal to Andrew Leaddis. If not, you will know at the end of movie) The most interesting defense mechanism is rationalization. To make his fantasy world keep going, he rationalized all the usual things, no matter how Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan imply him. So Dr. Cawley showdown at the end: 1: last night, Rachel disappeared between 10~12, and today, he is on the ship to Shutter Island with a new partner Chuck, who is from Seattle, 3000 miles away. 2: Chuck is worked four years in federal government but he cannot take out his gun smoothly. 3: Rachel’s room is in B part which is male ward and her shoes are huge men’s shoes. 4: Rachel was found without any scratches on the feet, but it was storm outside and she ran away without shoes on. There are still more this kind of flaws but he ignore all of them. This is the only way he can keep hiding in his fantasy world. As I mentioned, he has serious paranoid personality disorder. In the movie, Martin Scorsese used some uncommon phenomenon to imply the existence of his hallucination: 1: when he first arrived the hospital, everything seems horrible and hostile. All patients were working with handcuffs and fetters. At the end of movie, we can see the reality view of hospital is warm and nice. 2: His wife, a dead woman, appears everywhere. 3: When they interrogate Mrs. Carnes, she wrote â€Å"RUN† on his note book but actually she did not. The clue is Mrs. Carnes change her emotion, became scared suddenly. And she pretended to drink water but there was no cup in her hand. 4: Andrew had an important conversation with George in C ward. George’s emotion changed without any sign like Mrs. Carnes, and told Andrew about the brain washing surgery in lighthouse. 5: Andrew found a cigarette end on cliff, so that he found Chuck’s body at bottom. This part is proved is his illusion because he noticed there is no body after he went down the cliff. And there was a clue implies audiences: the wind on cliff blow his hair to the right but the smoke from the cigarette end was to the other side. And then he found a large number of rats come out from the cave. There should not have any rat in ocean. It is imply that the meeting and conversation he had with â€Å"doctor† in cave is his imagine. He is â€Å"man to violence† or a â€Å"violence man†. He loved to choose violence way to express himself. He had hurt most of people in this hospital. The people he beat include patients, security guards, policemen, nurses, care workers, his friend George, and even Dr. Sheehan at the end. And because of his antisocial behaviors, this is the last chance they will treat him as a patient. If role-paly treatment failed, then they will do the lobotomy. All of those disorders were working to his dissociative identical disorder. All the avoidances and defense mechanisms helped him to create a new person and a new story. I choose this character because most of psychiatrists are not willing to accept this disorder. And someone think it is a good way to avoid sadness, so it is not necessary to treat them. But actually the patients is not happy in their fantasy world, they just struggle between the reality and illusion. In Andrew’s dream, his wife said â€Å"you have to stay, she is here, you can’t leave† to make him stay in his role-paly memory. But she also said â€Å"you have to wake up. You have to dace that† to make him realized the truth. Struggle only can make things worse and increase the tension, and DID should be value so that we can find more valuable and safety treatments. Andrew’s disorder is not caused by biological injured. His dissociative identity disorder and dissociative amnesia is cause by two traumas in his life. This first time is happened when he was a soldier. He saw thousands women and kids killed by Nazi. In his dream, a little girl asked him why he did not save her, save of them. The second trauma happened when his wife killed his kids. His little girl, Rachel (same name with the missing patient in his imagination), appeared in his dream and illusion many times and asked: â€Å"you should save me; you should save all of us! † He blamed himself for why he was there too late; for why he did not pay a little attention on his poor wife; for why he killed his wife. Psychodynamic theorists believe this disorder is caused by repression, which I mentioned earlier as a defense mechanism. The trauma Andrew went through is thought to result from a lifetime of excessive repression. He cannot accept those memories, so the best way to avoid them is repress them to unconscious part. And create new personalities/alters that can help the host feel better. Behaviorisms believe dissociate is developed from normal memory processes by operant conditioning. Andrew may create some unreal memory and other personalities after the trauma, and he will keep doing that because illusion can make him forget guilt and sadness. After long run, he is truly believed that he is the person he created and those unreal memories become real to him. Someone may argue that DID is a byproduct form evolution of human. But I personally disagree, because I do not think prevention of suicide is a way to continuation the racial. According the theoretical perspectives and the movie, possible treatment could be in three ways: Psychodynamic treatment, which is used in movie, is a useful way because it really works. Exposures, according to Dr. Cawley is role-play treatment, is the way to make patient flash back and try to make them recall the lost memory. It is works because according to Andrew’s reaction, scenario reproduction can make people realize their unconscious thoughts. This treatment cost lots of money, time and labors. The result may be disappointed as Dr. Cawley said: â€Å"you was back to normal 9 months ago† but Andrew out of control again. So they use the same way treated him again, and it finally worked. But after his tough memory came back, he was not being able to accept them. At last, he decided to using psychosurgery. Biological treatment used to be very popular, especially in 1950’s. They provide the most quick and effective way to reduce the abnormality. What they do is use electric shock make people numb so that they will feel better, or â€Å"put mania patients in cold water until thy calm down†. The case like Andrew, they will cut off his front lob so that he will become an idiot without any emotion and feeling. Biological therapies can solve the problem, but it is because they only focus on the result but not how patients feel. Therapies are made to help people feel better, if they be treat like mice in lab, there is no necessary to use the therapies. Beside the treatment used in movie, behavioral therapies are worth to try . But since Andrew’s disorders were so serious, it may be not work very well. Give him reward when he think and act in a normal way. Encourage him when he faced the trouble to forgiving himself. Teach him how to face his imagination and other illusions. But if he stay in his fantasy world and never came out, his way will be useless. I have to say this is a perfect movie. Every second is worth to thinking about. I never associate with DID patient but I think this movie describe their situation very well. Some people may feel DID patients’ behaviors are laughable because they switch between different personalities. But this movie provide a real and vivid view of DID patients. If you can went through every second in this movie more than twice, you can see that every detail of dissociative disorder is fully showed. I cannot find any loopholes or tommyrots in this works. This film brings dark and gloomy emotion to most of people. This is a miserable and entangled story, even is a not real. Beside the sadness, I still feel a little bit warm from this film. Even there is war between biological therapy and psychology theory, Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan still insist to treat their patients nice and warm. They were willing to spend more time and money to save the people in pain instead just use surgery to make them like â€Å"zombie†. When Dr. Sheehan noticed that Andrew still believed he is a marshal, I thought I saw the most disappointed face in the world. Two year, lots of money and stress from outside, are equal to nothing. But is Andrew really back to crazy? No! His last question to Sheehan is â€Å"Which one would be worse: to live as a monster or to die as a good man? † After Andrew got all his memory back, he cannot take them. But he is not insane any more so he cannot avoid them either. His last choice was agree to accept the lobotomy and become a man without memory and pain. This is the only way he can live as a â€Å"good man†. â€Å"I wish I could let you just live in your fantasy world, I really do. † Dr. Cawley’s goal was also what I thought about. Since create alter and story is the way people protect themselves from unacceptable memory, then why just leave them in their imagine world? They could be happier if no one unmasks the lie. But after this movie, I realized that truth will never go, they just wander between conscious and unconscious place in people’s memory. History will stay there forever, no matter you face them or just turn around. Patients usually just struggle between the truth and their imagination. They create one alter to tell them â€Å"wake up†, and create another role to push them stay in the dream. They still surfer the pain during the struggle, so face the truth may be better for their future.