A characters first entrance into a novel delineates their character. In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness there is a consistent theme of lurking evil. Conrad portrays Kurtz's infernal nature through his entrance. Conrad depicts evil through imagery, language, and Kurtz's actions.

Conrad uses diabolic imagery to illustrate Kurtz's arrival. Kurtz arrives with people that have the aura of evil. When Kurtz first arrives he is accompanied by a group of men that appear, "as though they had come up from the ground" (Conrad 58). Kurtz is accompanied by zombie or demoniac people which shows that evil has arrived. Conrad's uses objective snake imagery to describe Kurtz during his entrance. Marlow describes Kurtz's appearance, "the eyes of that apparition shining darkly in its boney head that nodded with grotesque jerks" (59), as snake-like. Marlow goes on to describe, "His covering had fallen off" (59), as if he was shedding. Conrad uses the...