The Negro and the Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" was written in 1898 and 1899 and published in 1902. So, although it was not surprising that the word used to describe a black person was nigger was equally insulting. Throughout the story I had to remind myself of the time period in which it was written. Joseph Conrad is nothing short of a genius. His writing technique is eloquent and surreal and yet, after completing “Heart of Darkness,” I couldn't help but feel a little insulted by the oft-used word nigger. My feelings lead me to do a little research on this word nigger. I checked three dictionaries: (1) the "Oxford Concise Dictionary", (2) the "Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary", and (3) "The American Heritage Dictionary". They all had one definition in common: “a dark-skinned member of any race.” Furthermore, everyone said it was “offensive”. Webster's went further and defined "a member of a socially disadvantaged class of persons." Now this last definition was closer to what my parents had told me about the meaning of the word nigger, ignorant person. I tend to like my parents' definition much more than everything else combined! The word negro actually comes from the Latin word niger meaning black. Okay, so we're getting closer to understanding it now. So why all this controversy around this word? I also have to ask myself if "The Heart of Darkness" had been written by a black author would I have felt equally or less offended? This word nigger was recently the cause of a controversy between two very important directors, Spike Lee (black) and Quentin Tarantino (white), regarding Tarantino's new film “Jackie Brown”. Lee felt that Tarantino used the word nigger too many times in his film and considered it a racist act. I'm not sure, but I think Lee has also overused the word in his films and yet publicly cries foul when Tarantino does the same thing. What makes black people so offended that white people use the word nigger when they use it themselves? The main reason touted is because some black people use it (and I mean use it often) as a term of endearment. Then there are some blacks (usually upper class) who use the word as an insult, as in Webster, as a description of a low class black person..