Throughout our time as AP English students, we have been trained to analyze everything around us. When starting a new novel, we tend to discuss the meaning of the title, and this idea got me wondering about the idea behind naming the freaky island where the story takes place “Shutter” Island. According to dictionary.com, shutter has a variety of meanings, including; “1) a solid or louvered movable cover for a window, 2) a person or thing that shuts, and 3) to close or close down.” Any of these could have inspired the title of this fictional island, some ideas slightly more plausible than others, but all valid. Maybe the author of the novel version of Shutter Island (Dennis Lehane) saw how shutters (definition 1) close off an individual from their outside surroundings, like how Teddy and the other patients are closed off from the rest of the world. Maybe Teddy is attempting to be a “shutter” (definition 2) throughout the movie and shut down the asylum, which he considers corrupt. Maybe it refers to the lobotomy that Teddy is threatened with; if he fails to understand his past, he will be “shuttered down.” Or the author could have liked the name because is sounds creepy. In English, unlike many other classes, we can never settle upon a certain answer, and, instead, learn fully from our path to finding the answer. However outlandish an idea may seem, anything could be interpreted from a novel, or even just a title, and we learn more from our analysis than our final solution.
Brooke, I agree with you that literary analysis is more about the journey than it is the destination, as are most things I have found. I alos think this was a very fun idea for a blog. I personally think the idea that Mental Hospitals along with their patients are closed of from the outside world, seems plausible. Especially in the case of the island, which is enclosed from any land. We could go on and on for possible meaning, the deeper you think about this, but I think it is brilliant how open ended even the title of the movie is. The movie itself, the names of the people, the hallucinations even, all caused a flood of thinking, but when the title does just as much as the plot, I wonder what kind of genius people come up with this stuff!
ReplyDeleteAs I read your post another possibility for the use of Shutter came to me. Perhaps the name came from how Teddy shut out reality to only have his own world using the third definition. Also by extension that would reference how people have the ability to reject a reality that they do not like and shut it down. This whole argument is interesting because the variety of solutions we came up with from just the title is fascinating.
ReplyDeleteBrooke I found your post well done and thought provoking. I personally think the title revolves around your second definition, a thing that shuts. I felt like the island shuts and prevents people from leaving. I also think it makes the book and move sound extremely creepy.
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