The name Giselle comes from the 19th Century ballet by Théophile Gautier, and is particularly appropriate to Conrad's multi-level character. In the ballet, Giselle is a peasant girl wooed by two lovers (as this Giselle is wooed by Ramirez and Nostromo). She favors one, but discovers that he is betrothed to another woman (as Nostromo is to Linda). This discovery causes her to die, whereupon she joins a band of spirits called the Wilis who wreak vengeance on men by making them dance themselves to death. This fits nicely with Conrad's allegory, in which Giselle stands for the socialist utopia, an undying and unachievable dream-ideal for which men do, in a sense, dance themselves to death.

At the end of the ballet, Giselle is powerless to save her beloved from the dance of death, but he is saved by the breaking dawn that banishes the Wilis. In Nostromo sunlight represents disillusioning reality, suggesting perhaps that the only escape from the dream-ideal of utopia is disillusionment.