THE WINE BY DORIS LESSING ACTIVITY

1. Identify the elements of a plot in the story.

The faint visibility of spring is already evident on the trees along the streets of
Paris, where a man and a woman walk into the boulevard and goes into a cafe,
coming from a hotel nearby where they spent the night the previous day. The two
of them are the only individuals at the place, for it is lunch and people are in
restaurants, while others are demonstrating making loud noises awakening the
couple from slumber. They order coffee, which remained untouched both speak
not with words, but with eyes, expressions, and gestures for the first minutes and
still understanding what the other meant.
Exposition
The man starts a conversation showing his side of cruelty as a person through his
language. The woman looks outside, seeing the protesters and the man as well
arousing nostalgia for both of them. The woman remembers herself fifteen years
ago, under the shade of the moonlight in the “glistening grass” alone in silence.

The man suddenly orders wine, which the woman reacted to “humorously,” she
then looks at the man she loves, waiting for the wine, and again somehow, the
“girl running hazily through the trees.” The man asks what she is thinking, which
she “protested humorously,” so as the man, he offers for a toast, but the woman
declines to drink yet, then he begins to smoke.
Lovers, yet different in several aspects, for a moment, the couple kept silent until it
was broken by the man telling a story that happened to him years before. It was
when he was still a young man and a student where he met a girl with whom he
studied with. He expresses that he keeps remembering her for a particular reason
Rising Action and reveals that the girl confessed she likes him, but he already has a girlfriend.
The man repeatedly pauses while telling the story and makes the woman
uncomfortable due to his recollections of the past.

At this moment, the last of the protestors are gone, leaving the couple alone
together with silence and space.
The man reveals that the young girl offered him to have sex, which he refused,
making the woman startled and angry upon hearing this. She asks the man to
continue, and the man describes the night it happened inside a barn where they
slept in an apple orchard together with their friends. He kissed her but refused to
continue and have sex because he was with his girlfriend.

The woman now feels angrier due to his revelation, but the man argues and
counterfeits that it was the time of “the youth movement.” The woman continues
Climax her accusations, to which the man agrees. The woman expresses her boiling
anger and sentiment towards the cruelty of what the man did. The couple argues
with each other expressing their sides and opinions regarding the matter. The
man blames it on his age as he was young and did not know very well about such
things.

Although not familiar with the story, the woman expresses her sentiments and
sympathy towards the young girl. The man continues his story and says that the
girl became angry with him and started a love affair with his best friend, the man
beside him, the night the girl offered him to make love.
Falling Action The woman shows a devastating reaction to the story of the man, expressing her
own belief regarding the matter with mixed emotions. She then describes the
feelings of the girl after a heartbreaking rejection of a man she likes. Tears started
trickling down her face, and say that what the man did was a terrible thing that the
 young girl will remember for the rest of her life.

The story of the girl and the recollection of the woman in the earlier part of the
story shows similar depictions, and given the woman’s reactions, reveals that she
is the young girl in the man’s story fifteen years ago. The man kisses her and
apologizes, saying it was not his fault which the woman agreed.
The man gave the wine glass to the woman, she lifted it and drank with the man,
Resolution whom she liked fifteen years ago, but broke her heart and still ended up with him.
The man and the woman rekindled their love with each other when their
circumstances and destiny finally allowed them to.

2. What flaws of women can you identify from the story? Explain your answer.
Emotional instability, longing for intimacy, and sexual desire, these things can be
considered flaws when done in severity.

In the story, we get to have a glimpse and an eye-opener of the feelings of a woman, which
is hard to comprehend and understand, especially to its opposite sex, men. Women being
emotional is their way of handling and facing things, which I perceive positively, for we all
are human beings, and it is only natural. Men, on the other hand, suppress their feelings, to
not be seen as weak, which I disagree with, as I see crying as a strength for expressing
your genuine and true emotions.

Men do not only have the rights and freedom to express their desires, love, and sexuality.
All genders have equal rights and freedom in every aspect, not only men alone. What
others might see as a flaw, I consider as a strength of a strong woman.