Nick Carraway as the Honest Liar in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby"Everyone suspects that they possess at least one of the cardinal virtues, and that is mine: I am one of the few honest people I have ever known" (Fitzgerald Gatsby 64). Thus writes Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, characterizing himself before the great masses of humanity as a perfectly honest man. The honesty that Nick attributes to himself must be almost perfect, both due to its rarity and its "cardinal" nature; Nick claims to be among the most honest people he has ever met. The events in the book, however, do not confirm this self-characterization; far from being among the most honest people in the world, Nick Carraway is actually a skilled liar, although he never loses blind faith in his own pure honesty. First, Fitzgerald's choice of the word "suspicions" indicates, and almost guarantees, a certain uncertainty regarding that suspicion; the fact that these are fallible (and often self-deceiving) human beings making observations about themselves makes this uncertainty even greater. The fact that “everyone” believes they are one of the “few” holders of a cardinal virtue solidifies the issue; put simply, except for an unrealistically optimistic view of human nature or an extremely broad definition of the "cardinal virtues", it is simply impossible to accept that all human beings everywhere are an example of one of humanity's cardinal virtues. Some people do not have to have the cardinal virtue that they suspect of themselves. Nick, however, seems to forget this fact and starkly states, “I am one of the few honest people I have ever known” (64). The choice of "am" is very important here;...... middle of the paper... themselves. Even when faced with a denial of his perfectly honest nature, as Jordan does at the end of the novel, Nick responds with an appeal to his faith in his own honesty: his myth about himself is so sacred. Much like Gatsby's self-image, Nick's belief in his own honesty seems to flow from Plato's conception of honesty, and much like Gatsby, he simply ignores or rationalizes anything that conflicts with his belief. Nick Carraway is not one of the few honest narrators I have ever read, but he is a testament to the power of self-deception that exists in both fictional and non-fictional humans. “Everyone suspects that they possess one of the cardinal virtues,” Nick says, and as Nick himself proves, almost everyone is wrong. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Scribner Paperback Fiction: New York, 1991.