Ten of the best examples of scars

The Odyssey by Homer

When Odysseus returns home to Ithaca, no one recognises him until his old slave Eurycleia washes his feet. She knows who he is when she sees the scar on his leg, unmistakably the same one that the young Odysseus got while boar hunting on Mount Parnassus.

David Copperfield by Dickens

Rosa Dartle has dark hair, eager eyes and a scar. "It was an old scar - I should rather call it a seam, for it was not discoloured, and had healed years ago - which had once cut through her mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, except above and on her upper lip". It changes colour when she is "passionate".

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling

The lightning-flash cicatrix on Harry's forehead, evidence of Voldemort's attempt to kill him as a baby, throbs when things get dangerous. But Professor Dumbledore declines to repair it. "Scars can come in useful. I have one myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground."

Beloved by Toni Morrison

A novel concerned with the wounds of slavery naturally finds one metaphor in a scar. The heroine, Sethe, carries "a tree on her back", the result of a terrible whipping she received for trying to escape from slavery. Evidence of violence, it has become weirdly beautiful.

Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge

On board the Titanic, Bainbridge's protagonist and narrator, Morgan, discovers that a fellow passenger, Scurra, seems to know everyone's secrets. Scurra is marked for power by a strange scar, his bottom lip "scored through as though by a slash from a knife". He claims to have been attacked by a macaw in a Cape Town department store.

The Rajah's Diamond by Robert Louis Stevenson

John Vandeleur, infamous for his "exploits and atrocities" when dictator of Paraguay, carries a frightening scar. This "unscrupulous man of action" menaces anyone he meets with "the deep sabre-cut that traversed his nose and temple". We never discover how he got it.

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

In several poems in this collection about his relationship with Sylvia Plath, Hughes sees in his mind's eye the scar that was the mark of her youthful suicide attempt. In "18 Rugby St" he recalls how "In the roar of soul your scar told me - / Like its secret name, or its password - / How you had tried to kill yourself".

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Chopin's heroine, Edna Pontellier, finds the right kind of scar difficult to resist. Fretting at the restrictions of married life, she falls into an affair with the rakish Alcée Arobin. One evening he shows her the duelling scar on his wrist. "A quick impulse that was somewhat spasmodic impelled her fingers to close in a sort of clutch upon his hand."

Coriolanus by Shakespeare

The grumpy hero of this Roman tragedy is good at fighting but bad at politics. He is named after a battle, and bears the marks of the wars he has fought. But he gets cross when some of the citizens who question his status ask him to "show us his wounds and tell us his deeds". He decides to keep his scars hidden, and so forfeits their support.

East Lynne by Ellen Wood

Lady Isabel Vine cheats on her husband, then flees in shame to France where she is thought to have died. In fact she returns as "Madame Vine", to be governess to her own children. Mutilation has disguised her: "She is the oddest-looking person; wears spectacles, caps, enormous bonnets, and has a great scar on her mouth and chin." The former beauty has suffered a punishment for her adultery.

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