The Heart of las Darkness, published in 1902, transcends the historical and social circumstance to become an exploration of las ra of the human, those catacombs of ser where nests a vocation of destructive irrationality that progress and civilization manage to attenuate but never completely eradicate. Perhaps the best introduction to The Heart of las Darkness is the brief comment that Conrad himself made after his trip to the Congo in 1890: Before the Congo I was a solo a mere animal.