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Introduction Toni Morrison was one of the most popular and successful black female writers in American literature. With the publication of her novel, Beloved, however, critics worldwide recognized that here was an author with a depth and brilliance that made her work universal .In this story set in Reconstruction Ohio, Morrison paints a dark and powerful portrait of the dehumanizing effects of slavery. Inspired by an actual historical incident, in Beloved the author tells the story of a woman haunted by the daughter she murdered in order not to let her slavery, and that also the main plot in this novel. Many reviewers hailed Beloved as a masterpiece when it first appeared in 1987, and very few readers will miss the experimental structure of Beloved. It is not a linear tale, told from beginning to end. It is a story encompassing levels of past, from the slave ship to Sweet home, as well as the present. Sometimes it is told in stories, and sometimes is plainly told, as if it were happening in the present. The novel is, in essence, written in fragments, pieces shattered and left for the reader to place together. The juxtaposition of past with presents serves to reinforce the idea that the past is alive in the present, and by giving us fragments to work with Morrison melds the entire story into one inseparable piece Morrison’s use of both verse and stream of consciousness writing where necessary is unsurpassed and not often matched in literature. In this novel Morrison uses much ambiguous symbolism, which not only embodies her unique artistic inspiration and her well-known narrative techniques, but also reveals the mental and physical trauma caused by slavery as well as the lingering damage inflicted on its survivors. 1. Scars and the symbolic meanings When verbal communications is suppressed or when the language and ways of communication used by the majority do not fit the needs of the minority, minority people subvert communication to fit their own needs. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved many methods of communication that are used by the majority in a negative way are effectively hijacked by the people of the minority to create a completely new message and a positive form of communication. They choose to make their scars work for them to express their thoughts, ideas and memories once the other choice of communication such as written and oral language may fail. Scars prove themselves to be something solid, physical and unchanging, on which people may depend when written and spoken words may fail. In this way, scars function as a viable alterative form of communication, acting as a medium for storytelling, identification, and shared bond between people. Scars, therefore, provide channels for the expression of ideas, thoughts and memories. 1.1 Subversion of scars and storytelling As previously mentioned, oral communicationis in many ways abused by those in power (i.e. whites) in Beloved. This abuse is evident in many manifestations, including the scene in which Sixo outsmarts the schoolteacher in banter. Sixo is then physically beaten, “to show him that definitions belong to the definers, not to the defined” (Morrison, 1990: 171). To counter this reality in terms of oral and written communication, other types of `languages` were used. One of the most interesting methods of communication in Beloved was through the character’s scars and physical markings. This is particularly interesting considering the vast difference in the