At the beginning of Shutter Island, Chuck tells Teddy that hospitals like Ashecliffe will cease to exist in twenty years. Chuck worries that closing psychiatric hospitals means losing “‘our past to assure our future’” (18). The past and progress are at odds with one another throughout the novel, and Lehane argues that a person cannot embrace one without sacrificing the other.

The past is attractive because it offers permanence; while the future has yet to be written, and is thus unpredictable, the past is unchangeable. Teddy, whose present is dangerous and whose future looks bleak, holds on to the past to relive his happiest moments with Dolores. In remembering the past, Teddy experiences the way their love filled him “the way food, blood, and air never could” once again (242). Teddy’s memories allow him to cling to Dolores with the desperation of a lost man. In many ways, Teddy has lost himself to the past. He fears that moving forward will mute Dolores’ image until she becomes “less of a person who had lived and more the dream of one,” so he visits her every night in his dreams (200).

The counterpoint is equally true—the future offers progress, but at the expense of history.