Why Am I Scared?

         I will probably never visit a remote island where the entire population consists of mental patients and staff. I do not plan on working as a federal marshal or with the criminally insane. I cannot realistically see myself in any situation presented in the movie Shutter Island. So why do I find this movie so disconcertingly real? First of all, the whole "who can you trust?" and "what is actually real?" theme really messes with my mind. But that did not disturb me most of all. Whether or not Ted turns out to be a mental patient trapped in his own delusions, the movie still introduces the interesting concept of mental bias. People who have mental illnesses (or if others claim that they have them) have virtually no reliability in the eyes of society. As soon as someone calls another's sanity into question, they immediately lose some, if not all, creditability. A group of physiatrist with clipboards is significantly more dangerous than most weapons. Weapons can physically harm you; however, if someone starts to doubt your sanity, then that calls everything else into question. Friends, family member, and even you may start to believe you are insane. I cannot imagine a lonelier feeling than knowing you are sane when everybody else disagrees and will not even take you seriously. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the reader gets to know their characters personalities. We did not think of them only in terms of their mental illness. I never doubted the truthfulness of anything Harding or McMurphy said. Bromden has delusional episodes, but one could easily tell when he entered that state. Shutter Island shows us the patients from an entirely different point of view; insane, dangerous, and difficult to trust. And it also challenges the audience to decide who to trust and what is real, leading to some pretty confusing questions: What if this happened to you?