Shutter Island: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Before examining the graveyard, Teddy notices some strange rocks piled down on the beach. He counts them and realizes there are 13 piles. He theorizes Rachel might have made the rock piles and wonders if it could be another code. He counts the number of rocks in each pile and writes the numbers down in his notebook. Chuck asks Teddy if he is a former intelligence officer. Teddy tells Chuck he was at one time but got discharged from the army. He also relates a story about how he messed up one day when supplying his troops with the enemy's coordinates. His mistake resulted in the deaths of half a battalion. He still remembers hearing gunfire and screams over a radio.

Chuck and Teddy examine the graveyard and look for anything that could be useful for their case. They find a large, beautiful mausoleum and step inside to shield themselves from the storm. Neither knows why such an elaborate structure would exist on the island. In the mausoleum, Chuck and Teddy trade war stories. Chuck tells Teddy about the only time he killed a man in combat. Meanwhile, Teddy says that he has killed too many men to count. Teddy also tells Chuck that he does not think he would ever let his son go to war, even if the cause was wholly just. He thinks killing is too much to ask of a man, regardless of the circumstances.

Chuck acknowledges Teddy's point. He also says that people who did not go to war will never understand it. Teddy agrees and then tells a story about a war crime he and his troop committed. When his troop rolled into Dachau and witnessed the devastation the Nazis caused, they rounded up every SS member they could find and executed them after they had already surrendered. Teddy knows what he did was wrong but thinks he did it for the right reason. Regardless, the memory will always haunt him.

After bonding over the war, Chuck asks Teddy how much he knows about Shutter Island. Teddy admits that he knows more than he let on previously and that the island frightens him. He also says that he believes Dr. Cawley and his team are experimenting with hallucinogens such as LSD and Mescaline on their patients. Chuck finds it hard to believe that such experiments would be legal. Teddy assures him that the experiments are probably legal, but that does not mean they are ethical.

Then, Chuck asks Teddy how he knows about all of this in the first place. Teddy tells Chuck he previously called around to investigate a different institution that he thought was holding Andrew. However, that institution told him they transferred Andrew to Shutter Island. When Teddy contacted Shutter Island, they told him they did not have a patient named Andrew Laeddis. This response intrigued Teddy, and he began investigating Shutter Island. One of his associates warned Teddy to avoid the island because Ashecliffe was performing classified experiments. However, Teddy was determined to find Laeddis and discover the island's secrets, so he ignored the warning.

When Teddy heard there was a chance to go to Shutter Island, he jumped on it immediately. He says it is “lucky” that the opportunity came up. Chuck assures him that luck has nothing to do with it. He theorizes that Dr. Cawley and his team may have lured Teddy to the island because they discovered he was looking into them.

Teddy does not buy Chuck's theory at first, so Chuck continues peeling back the layers. He suggests that Rachel Solando could be a complete fabrication because her escape seems impossible, and they have not seen any evidence that she actually exists. Someone could have doctored her file and invented the case to draw Teddy to the island. Teddy is still skeptical, but Chuck insists it makes the most sense given everything they have seen. He worries that the two of them are in danger. Just as he says this, the mausoleum door rips off and gets carried away by the storm, shocking both of them.

Teddy asks Chuck if he recalls when Dr. Cawley asked him about a senator. Chuck says that he does. Teddy tells him that the senator Dr. Cawley was referring to heads up a committee on funding for mental health resources. The senator is skeptical about Shutter Island because of a recent legal case. A man named George Noyce went to the island and only spent two weeks there. A few weeks after returning, Noyce stabbed several people and went to jail. His lawyer pleaded insanity and, indeed, for some time, Noyce appeared completely insane. However, about a year later, he recovered and started discussing strange experiments at Ashecliffe.

The senator and Teddy were interested in Noyce's case and eventually contacted each other. While on Shutter Island, Noyce apparently received doses of hallucinogens, and someone performed a transorbital lobotomy on him. Evidently, the lobotomy did not work, given that Noyce still managed to kill multiple people. Chuck asks how that is possible, but before Teddy can answer, he hears someone calling to them out in the storm. Unnerved, Teddy and Chuck step outside of the mausoleum to find McPherson.