scarsbel Using Scars to Communicate in Toni Morrison's Beloved

Using Scars to Communicate in Beloved

There are certainly complications to assumptions of how scars are used as a means of communication in the novel, Beloved. The character named Beloved has her own distinct scars that bear significance in the story. Her scars are distinct not only in their origins, but also in their meaning, and create a point of diversion from the traditional pattern established by the role of scars in the lives of other characters. The scratches on her forehead and the cut across her neck were not made by a white oppressor, but instead by her own mother, Sethe. Sethe kills her own daughter in a fit of anxiety, rather than to have her children taken away by the slave owners which tracked her down following her escape. These markings tell Beloved's story, how her own mother sawed away at the baby girl's tiny neck, her fingernails clawing into her forehead. In the end, this is the way in which Sethe can identify the returned from the dead Beloved (now an adult) as well. These scars serve as a reminder of everything Beloved had gone through. They become a symbo...