Isolated environments cause madness: The environment expresses a lot about the underlying darkness and roots of issues in the gothic genre, one of which is an individuals’ journey with madness. This can be mirrored through the environment as it echoes what is going on emotionally with characters. In the gothic genre, the environment can be seen as an ever-present motif of a character's suffering which enhances the possibilities for madness. Characters are seen to be affected by their environment in many ways through the texts; Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein), the unnamed Narrator (The Yellow Wallpaper), Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House Usher) and Teddy Daniels (film Shutter Island). Many times, the gothic genre will present characters …show more content…
The revelations of the environment that are uncovered by Teddy Daniels reflect the truths that are learnt as they are found out by him as well throughout the film. Another patient of the institution reveals to Daniels that “this is a game. All of this is for you. You're not investigating anything. You're a [*******] rat in a maze.” The truth about where he is, directly correlates with who he is. The island being secluded from “mainland” represents isolation to convey how Daniels real self is also secluded from himself by himself so he won’t have to confront that he is a madman. From a gothic perspective having an isolated setting emphasize the sense of evil, in Shutter Island, the evil is not representing the evil of the institute as we are led to believe but instead it’s the evil of Daniels himself that is foreshadowed by the isolated setting. Teddy thinks the private island is evil is due to the fact that it represents how he himself is of evil nature which emphasises the relationship between the mask that he sees on the institution to hide his own mask. Teddy Daniels was already mad, but he learnt about his true being because of the isolated