The confrontation between Sotillo and Hirsch is an exposure of the basest human motives, greed and fear. Both characters have both qualities: the greed-motivated Sotillo is also a coward, and the fear-motivated Hirsch is also greedy (as illustrated by his conversation with Charles Gould in Chapter 2-5 , and the recurring ironic references to him as "merchant" in this scene). The philosophy of Nostromo argues that this confrontation represents the essence of the human condition: greed and fear brutally encountering each other in pursuit of unavailable knowledge and unrealizable dreams.