a discourse

Is it not possible that the black rain that beats its channels through Marechera's head creates the basis for his social and political discourse?

Meanwhile the conventional or accepted idea of what a discourse is turns out to be the patterns beaten into the heads of those whose mentality is collectivist.

Thus we have an immanent notion of discourse contrasted with one that has been given as if "from above" -- a transcendentalist conception of discourse.

Which is the true discourse? The discourse illuminated by trauma, or the discourse that is discovered as the ant traces his passage through society in the same ways, each time?

The complexity of the discourses illuminated by black rain reveals more of a palimpsest of one's personal (and perhaps collective ) history. The discourses illuminated by rationality and by mapping what has gone before, in relation to the experiences of others and in regards to previous generations gives an idea of what has been, but not of what will be.

Discourses of the latter sort recognise social accommodation to the rule of power; whereas discourses of the former sort reveal the degree of resistance evident within the subject, who confesses that his understanding of reality is a detail etched within his mind, caused by the corrosion of 'black rain'.