Page 170 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

The Donkey 145

The revelation takes place progressively, partially and occasionally,
as it were, only to be denied recognition in a progressively stronger
manner. The shift of the scenes from daylight to night is analogous of
the unfolding revelatory process according to which what appears as
a servile non-human being who is granted no respect proves to be a
god-like power figure. The night darkness is illuminated, but no-one
is there to see the truth that is revealed.
The same progress in revelation is concomitantly homologous of a
constantly harder and harder denial of recognition of the claim made
by the revelatory process: the daylight is triumphantly blinding the
sight of humans to the nightly illumination The denial intensifies in
proportion to the process of revelation.
The logical texture of the narrative is tight and flawless. Sets of
opposition relentlessly succeed one another till the servile donkey is
eventually granted what was denied to him at the start: the glory and
power due to a Ksatriya. But the light that dawned upon the queen
.
when the world was plunged into a deep sleep will remain blacked out
forever by the daylight.
The fact remains a discursive claim, addressed to and owned by those
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only who share the same belief in the donkey as an avatar, particularly
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the community of the Vadars. The narrative makes sense for those who
.
already recognize the donkey as the specific emblem of their caste and
the figure that the community identifies itself with.

Thematic Analysis

A will to define and assert one’s own collective identity and a claim for
being recognized as a corresponding dignified status are the motive
drives that prompt the story of the donkey of the potter as narrated
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by a Gadī Vadar. The intentionality of the text is reflected in three
.
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cognitive operations that propound three answers, which are logically
homologous. They progressively reinforce one another till the narra-
tive reaches its peak.
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The Vadars, the Donkey and the Princess
.
A first process of symbolic recognition operates in most concrete terms
with the donkey as image of a toiling and subaltern life condition. The
referent of the discourse here is the most immediate level of experience