Joseph Liu Ms. Barklow Monster & Misfits Tuesday, 11 December 2018
To live as a monster, or to die as a good man After I finished watching the film shutter island, the story that goes in the film still makes me thinking about the twisted fate of Teddy or Laeddis, and the question that he left : “Which is better? To live as a monster, or to die as a good man…” There are reasons that Laeddis can’t run out of his old memories, taking any elements as examples, war, family, life. He is the veteran who has returned from battlefield, he understands the importance of live and he also knows about the things he did, those things that still clearly appear before his eyes, which is making him felt sinful and indescribable guilty. The only way he can get out is alcohol, and he is getting addicted to it, so, he takes less care on his family members —— even he loves them so much. His wife, Dolores can’t cherish the messed life with her long absent husband, she gone crazy, and killed their three children, and Laeddis who find all this things becomes sorrowful and mad…while he is crying in his sorrow, he ends the life of his wife by his sidearm, and then burns his own house. He rues to it with the rest of Teddy Daniels’s life, and by the same way to escape from the reality. He made his choice to be a good man Teddy, not Laeddis who killed his wife and burned his house, it is the main problem with him; and he chooses this way is because he can’t believe all the realities.My research will focus on the main character Laeddis and psychology studies that connected to the film. In my adaptation, I want to create a if ending of the film, which is Laeddis chooses to not do the surgery and come back to his suffering live. It will be a story talks about he can’t suddenly get recovery, so he struggles with himself and tries to face what is already happened in his life with unspeakable pain. One day, he find he found someone else is just have the almost same experience like him, and they just met and help each other to find their path and to transition, And finally, he finds his career and could restart his life. I want to create a different (mostly just little,little happier) character Laeddis and make it this way with some comparisons to the original version (since it is a if story), to present if he can go on without doing surgery, what exactly, digitally should his life looks like.
Annotated bibliographies
After the War: A Soldier’s Struggle to Come Home*
This article is from a 15 years veteran whose name is Vincent ‘Rocco’ Vargas, which tells a veteran real post war life.In his article, he illustrates that war is the easy part and the hard part is to get through the things. On the battlefield, he lost his mate, who he can’t ever forget in his life. He also lost his wife and kids, which lasts him struggles with drinking alcohol day and night. In the article, he says: “There a million reasons I can find to drink in the memory of those I lost – on the anniversary date, on Veterans day, on Memorial day. But that doesn’t help me be successful in life.” Vargas insists that transition is doable, and he eventually done it by engaging in to clothing business, Article 15, which is a brand known as its “veteran owned clothing”. He makes videos that veterans enjoy and they will send back their comments and feedback of how they love the videos. This work not only helps Vargas himself, and also helps other veterans to find their path, and get through it, which Vargas is glad to do.
Scapegoats and redemption on Shutter Island *
This article is critical about violence, it explain Scorsese’s idea of violent cycle, and how the film presents the part of violent. It claims that violence is inside of of the human, a god gift. Violence is to conquer, but that is not the only feature it has, there so many ways of using violence as something, some power, some whatever. There is a point in this article that says Teddy’s choice is a “good violence” that to sacrifice himself to save other from himself. The author of the article think that Scorsese might consider this form of violence a “good violence”. In my project, in order to create different story line, it have to let the violence vanish from Teddy, and this article could be a good martial for creating comparisons. Reference to the article, if Teddy chooses to not do lobotomy, that means he realise to use violence to control, more accurately, to conquer violence is not the better way he can use, which also means he didn’t answer warden’s question “can my violence conquer yours?l” with a “yes”, instead he found a better way for himself. I will try to add comparisons in this part with the original version of Shutter to create differences.