In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, there are many characters that make brief appearances, or never even utter a sentence. The character that I believe has the most influence compared with their actual time in the novel is "the gorgeous apparition of a woman" that appears for only a brief moment, but represents many of the stories central ideas (136). From Kurtz's corruption to the conflict between society and savagery, she is able to illustrate many ideas without doing anything more than walking.
This woman sets her self apart from the other natives at first by stepping from the mass…