post 6: book 3 listicle

Why Dennis Lehane is a Literary Genius

In the novel, Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, there are so many twists and turns that occur in the book, at some points it’s almost hard to keep up. But it’s the plot twists and the unexpected turns that keep the readers intrigued and involved in the story because they want to know the answers just as bad as the characters in the book do. With everything that occurred in the book, it would’ve been extremely hard to just come up with all the tiny details needed to execute the mystery that unfolds throughout the book. For this story in particular, Lehane would’ve had to come up with an elaborate plan on how to execute everything. From the characters, to the back-story, to the tiny clues and small fragments of foreshadowing that happens throughout. This elaborate thought process and piecing everything together to create and execute such an amazing story, makes Dennis Lehane a Literary Genius.

Character Development: As the story develops, the characters develop with it. They begin to mold into each other. Lehane does an absolutely stunning job of developing his characters into real people. He develops the character through Teddy Daniels point of view, which gives the character more life. It was a very good choice made my Lehane to have an outside person tell the story with access to Teddy’s thoughts rather than just having Teddy narrate himself. With that in mind, you think that everyone is against Teddy and is trying to stop him from doing his job because that is the way that Teddy sees it. Especially Dr. Cawley. He appears to be plotting against Teddy because that is what Teddy’s predisposition of him is. This particular way that Lehane develops the characters is what makes the ending so incredibly amazing.

Setting Development: Almost immediately, the setting of Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island is introduced. The emotion portion of the island is developed through Teddy and his fear of water. Along with his fear comes the violent vomiting and Lehane draws a very descriptive picture in the readers mind about Teddy’s issue. “Teddy started the trip down on his knees in front of the toilet, heaving into the bowl as the ferry’s engine chugged and clacked and Teddy’s nasal passages filled with the oily smells of gasoline and the late summer sea. Nothing came out of him but small streams of water, yet his throat kept constricting and his stomach banged up against the base of his esophagus and the air in front of his face spun with motes that blinked like eyes.” This paragraph helps to build Teddy as a character but also the setting with the “late-summer”. It’s only later that Teddy realizes he will be trapped on an island; land completely surrounded by his biggest fear. “ “It’s the sea,” his father said, a hand lightly rubbing Teddy’s back as they leaned against the stern. “Some make take to it. Some men it takes.” ” Lehane creates the setting to set up Teddy’s demise almost immediately, which takes time to plan and work out before you can actually put the final product together.

Plot Development: Lehane develops the plot right from the beginning. He begins with a very short backstory about the death of his father then moves on to Teddy’s late wife, Dolores. Teddy’s flashbacks about Dolores are very important to the story. “Dolores, of the facts of her being on this earth for thirty-one years and then ceasing to be. Just like that. There when he left for work that morning. Gone by the afternoon.” Although they seem almost irrelevant, they are the bases of the entire story. Lehane does a very good job at hiding it. Not that it’s supposed to be hidden, but that fact that everything comes together in the end and everything relates back to something that was said in the very beginning of the book. The fact that Denis Lehane pieced everything together so perfectly is still an absolutely amazement. Nothing is to be given away about the ending of the book but just every single little piece to the plot is just so important to the resolution and it baffles me how someone like Denis Lehane isn’t talked about more.