How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #40
"'Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing.' Conceive you - that ass!" (2.2)
Sure, a "beacon": a beacon of immorality and evil. The manager is a hypocrite. Nothing he does helps the stations improve. In fact, under his authority, everything has decayed.
Quote #41
[The manager's uncle]: "'Ah! my boy, trust to this—I say, trust to this.' I saw him extend his short flipper of an arm for a gesture that took in the forest, the creek the mud, the river—seemed to beckon with a dishonouring flourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart. It was so startling that I leaped to my feet and looked back at the edge of the forest, as though I had expected an answer of some sort to that black display of confidence." (2.2)
We're used to thinking of nature as a relatively friendly, nurturing place—Mother Nature, and all that. But the manager's uncle assumes that Nature is evil, and Marlow obviously agrees. Awesome! Another binary smashed.