A light-hearted irony which nevertheless illuminates the difference between reality and an abstract ideal. In Nostromo, characters who dedicate themselves to a dream-ideal inevitably reach a point where service to the abstract good means disservice to the original goal. Thus Don Jose Avellanos will arrange gun-running behind the back of his ministers in the name of national honesty, Mrs Gould will wave troops off to war in the name of love, and Charles Gould will threaten to blow up the silver mine in the name of stability. As for Viola, the novel reaches its ultimate irony when the apostle of Liberty shoots down Nostromo, the embodiment of the People -- an act that this line subtly prefigures.