As the story progresses, the donkey develops methods to trick the ox again to send him back to work, but this portion of the story seems to be of lessened importance to the story to the father, who initially stops his tale at the point where the donkey becomes obsessed with ensuring that the ox gets back to work. Scheherazade's father is trying to impress upon her the dangers of letting the mind become obsessed with an idea, and though this is not the ultimate lesson of the story it is the part of the story that is important in context, and thus affects the telling of the story. No story exists simply on its own; each creation and retelling of the story has its own purpose, motives, and interpretations based on the personal experiences and beliefs of the teller and each of the people hearing the tale. There are many different lessons that could be learned form "The...

For the father in this context, however, there is only one important lesson, and this is the one he focuses on and the lesson to which he tailors his telling of the story in this instance.
The same contextual influence exists for all the stories in One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, albeit in a more subtle fashion. Scheherazade is trying to save her life with every story she tells, and the characters and plot twists are necessarily colored by this goal. The effects vary from story to story, but the heightened and fantastic nature of most of these tales can be attribute at least partially to the context in which these stories are being told.