The Misuse of Language in Beloved In Beloved by Toni Morrison many negative methods of communication used by whites are actually hijacked by blacks. Black people create a whole new message and form of positive communication. These forms of communication, in turn, empower oppressed Black people by providing channels for the expression of ideas, thoughts, and memories. This was the case in mid-1800s American culture, as depicted in Beloved, due to the divide in social society. status and power of black Americans relative to whites. White language was unable to effectively communicate everyone's thoughts and was used many times as a method of coercion. I am largely referring to oral and written communication. The oral communication carried out by white people in the book tends to be like orders, or to belittle, dismiss, or condemn. This gives standard oral communication a somewhat negative air. Written communication is also contaminated by white people who abuse it. For example, on pages 155-6, as Paul D reads the newspaper clipping that Stamp Paid gave him about Sethe, he is filled with a sense of foreboding. "A whip of fear burst into the chambers of the heart as soon as a Negro's face was seen in a newspaper, since the face was not there because the person had a healthy child, or had passed the street crowd, nor was there because the person had been killed, or maimed, or captured, or burned, or jailed, or whipped evicted or trampled upon or raped or deceived, since it would hardly have been considered news in a newspaper. It should be something out of the ordinary: something that white people would find interesting, truly different, worth sucking their teeth for a few minutes if.... ... middle of paper ... subvert this message of dehumanization, choose instead to make their scars work in ways that other communication options might fail, immutable that people can depend on when written and spoken words can fail them. In this way, scars function as a viable alternative form of communication, acting as a medium for storytelling,. identification and the bond shared between people. Scars empower those who would otherwise be oppressed. This disproves the assumption that “definitions belong to those who define, not to those who are defined” in the context of white people setting definitions and ruling over black people. Instead he changed the meaning as black people in the book are also definers, breaking with the dominance of the oppressor's language by developing their own interpretations and means of communication..