Toni Morrison's Beloved , the 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning historical fiction inspired by the life of Margaret Garner, circles each of its character's multi-dimensional traumas. Trauma theorists have named Beloved a paradigmatic trauma fiction, however, the psychology and public understanding of trauma have continued to develop rapidly since the novel's publication. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the ways in which Morrison expertly and intuitively handled the disintegration (and potential reintegration) of self in the wake of trauma in the novel, a now well-accepted facet of the post-traumatic experience. Furthermore, she has expertly demonstrated the ways in which language, an invaluable system for rendering meaning, appears suddenly pathetic in and around spaces of trauma. Consequently, self-definition, as an inherently collaborative process in the novel, plays an invaluable role in the reclamation power over one’s past traumas. The novel itself mirrors the fragmentation and fixation of the traumatized mind. Thus, Morrison’s accomplishment in the completion of such a lyrically precise narrative echoes and monumentalizes the retrospective potential for cathartic healing of ex-slave trauma survivors such as Sethe through communal rhythm.