Andrew’s Schizophrenia in Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

This thesis discusses Andrew’s schizophrenia and its treatment in Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. Andrew is described to have schizophrenia due to traumatic events. The traumatic events including his guilt of killing hundreds of unarmed soldier during World War II and Andrew’s guilt of not taking his wife, Dolores to psychiatrists that led her to murder her three children, resulting on Andrew ended up killing her with no other choice and lost his entire family. The grief of his family’s death leads him to a depression. His id cannot bear the pain to remember the trauma and unconsciously form the defense mechanism to escape from the guilt. The researcher applies psychoanalysis theory specifically theory of personality and defense mechanisms by Freud to analyze Andrew’s schizophrenia. The result shows that as a schizophrenic patient, Andrew’s id is dominating the work of his ego when his superego is hardly performed by him. Andrew performed four types of defense mechanism in the novel including denial, projection, regression, and displacement. Meanwhile, there are two ways of treatment carried out by psychiatrists in Ashecliffe to deal with Andrew’s schizophrenia such as psychodrama and medication.