“Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal
virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever
known” (Fitzgerald 59).
This is significant of nick saying this in many ways; the
reader can see this is the first point at which nick begins to realize that he
is unhappy, and unsatisfied living in the east egg community. He says, “I am
one of the few honest people that I have ever known,” (59) suggesting that the
community he lives in, all of his friends, and everybody he works with is
dishonest. This is not only true in his life, but it plays into one of the big
motifs of the novel, dishonesty, and distrust. It is the first sign of nick
changing also, it is uncertain, but very likely he also says this because he is
questioning himself. He is beginning to question if he still is an honest
person, or if the lifestyle of East Egg is catching up with him, and he is
getting sucked into the culture of his community.
This example does not really contain any syntactical strategies -- asyndeton, polysyndeton, anaphora, etc. -- but disregarding that fact, I really liked your analysis of such a short sentence. I thought the last part of your analysis about Nick questioning whether or not the East Egg has influenced him was very intelligent. I had not thought of that before, and it is great that you were able to discover that much from such a short sentence. It was also good that you were able to relate it back to one of the prominent motifs of dishonesty; it really shows how significant this one sentence is to the overshadowing theme of distrust throughout the whole novel.
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