document_title: The Handmaid's Tale

question_text: what is the narrator name in the handmaid's tale

question_tokens: what is the narrator name in the handmaid 's tale

text: The Handmaid's Tale

text: Plot summary[edit]

text: The Handmaid's Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a theonomic military dictatorship formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America.[5]

text: Beginning with a staged attack that kills the President and most of Congress, a fundamentalist Christian Reconstructionist movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order.[7] They are quickly able to take away women's rights, largely attributed to financial records being stored electronically and labelled by sex. The new regime, the Republic of Gilead, moves quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical model of Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. In this society, human rights are severely limited and women's rights are even more curtailed. For example, women are forbidden to read, and anyone caught in homosexual acts would be hanged for "Gender Betrayal."

text: The story is told in the first person by a woman called Offred. The character is one of a class of women kept for reproductive purposes and known as "handmaids" by the ruling class in an era of declining births due to sterility from pollution and sexually transmitted diseases. Offred describes her life during her third assignment as a handmaid, in this case to Fred (referred to as "The Commander"). Interspersed in flashbacks are portions of her life from before and during the beginning of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter to Canada, and finally to her indoctrination into life as a handmaid by government-trained women called the Aunts.

text: Offred describes the structure of Gilead's society, including the several different classes of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theonomy. The women are physical segregated by color of clothing--blue, red, green, and stripe--to signify social class and assigned position, ranked highest to lowest respectively. The higher class wives are dressed in blue, handmaids in red, Marthas (a reference to Martha Stewart--cooks and maids) in green, and striped is for the lower class women who essentially do all they can in the domestic sphere.

text: The Commander is a high-ranking official in Gilead. Although he is supposed to have contact with Offred only during "the ceremony," a ritual of sexual intercourse intended to result in conception and at which his wife is present, he begins an illegal and ambiguous relationship with Offred. Secret meetings occur between the Commander and Offred in his private study, where not even the Commander's Wife is permitted. The room is filled with books and is considered a private place for the man of the household. During these meetings, he means to earn her trust by talking to her and playing board games with her, such as Scrabble, which is another offense, as women are not permitted to read, even by spelling.

text: In addition to gaining Offred's trust, the Commander offers her hidden or contraband products, such as old (1970s) fashion magazines and cosmetics. His last gift is finally lingerie, and the Commander offers to take her to a secret brothel run by the government. This brothel is meant to add variety to men's sexuality, as stated is necessary by the Commander. There Offred meets her long-lost friend, Moira, and Moira explains everything she can in full. There are several types of women in the brothel, all of which are there by "choice," as they are the women seen to be defiant against the practice of handmaids. If not the brothels, then these women are forced to become Unwomen and work in the colonies outside of society, where they pick up the radioactive waste and die a slow and agonizing death. For the women in the brothels, they are allowed alcohol and drugs, a freedom Offred notes. Though these women are allowed to choose their patrons, it's frowned upon to refuse a man's advances.

text: The Commander's wife, Serena Joy, who lacks any sympathy or kindness for Offred, is seen as a minor antagonist. She is remembered by Offred as someone who supported women's domesticity before the full oppression of women. Though Offred wants a sense of companionship with her, Serena hates sharing her husband with a handmaid and makes her feelings about Offred very clear. She is a conservative woman who keeps to herself in a stern and strict fashion. Ironically enough, though, Serena also has secret interactions with Offred, arranging for her secretly to copulate with Nick, the Commander's driver, in an effort to get Offred pregnant. In exchange for Offred's cooperation, Serena Joy gives her news of her daughter and a recent photo, whom Offred has not seen since she and her family were captured trying to escape Gilead.

text: After Offred's initial meeting with Nick, they begin to meet more frequently. Offred discovers she enjoys sex with Nick, despite her indoctrination and her memories of her husband. She shares potentially dangerous information about her past with him. Through Offred's partnering handmaid, a trusted friend called Ofglen, Offred learns of the Mayday resistance, an underground network working to overthrow the Republic of Gilead. Shortly after Ofglen's disappearance (later revealed as a suicide), the Commander's wife finds evidence of the relationship between Offred and the Commander. Offred contemplates suicide.

text: As the novel concludes, she is being taken away by the secret police, the Eyes of God, known informally as "the Eyes," under alleged orders from Nick. Before she is put in the large black van, Nick tells her that the men are part of the Mayday resistance and that Offred must trust him. Offred does not know if Nick is a member of the Mayday resistance or a government agent posing as one, and she does not know if going with the men will result in her escape or her capture. She enters the van with her future uncertain.

text: The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue that explains that the events of the novel occurred shortly after the beginning of what is called "the Gilead Period." The epilogue is "a partial transcript of the proceedings of the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies" written in 2195. According to the symposium's "keynote speaker" Professor Pieixoto, he and his colleague Professor Knotly Wade discovered Offred's story recorded onto cassette tapes. They transcribed the tapes, calling them collectively "the handmaid's tale." Through the tone and actions of the professionals in this final section of the book, the world of academia is highlighted and critiqued, and Pieixoto discusses his team's search for the characters named in the Tale, and the impossibility of proving the tapes' authenticity.[8] It is assumed that Offred survived and that the Eyes that came to get her were, in fact, part of the Mayday resistance as her cassette tapes contain parts of the story that would have been impossible to tape without having successfully escaped. Nevertheless, the epilogue implies that, following the collapse of the theonomic Republic of Gilead, a more equal society—though not the United States that previously existed—re-emerged, with a restoration of full rights for women and freedom of religion. This is meant to serve as irony for the reader as the Professor speaks of Offred's troubling tale with little emotion, whereas the reader is feeling the utmost sympathy for Offred.

text: Characters[edit]

text: Offred[edit]

text: Offred is the protagonist and narrator. She was labeled a "wanton woman" when Gilead was established because she had married a man who was divorced. All divorces were nullified by the new government, meaning her husband was now considered still married to his first wife, making Offred an adulteress. In trying to escape Gilead, she was separated from her husband and daughter. She is part of the first generation of Gilead's women, those who remember pre-Gilead times. Proved fertile, she is considered an important commodity and has been placed as a handmaid in the home of the Commander Fred and his wife Serena Joy, to bear a child for them (Serena Joy is believed to be infertile).[9]

text: Offred is a slave name that describes her function: she is "of Fred", i.e. she belongs to Fred, her commander, and is considered a concubine. In the novel, Offred says that she is not a concubine, but a tool; a "two legged womb". The Handmaids' names say nothing about who the women really are (Offred Of Fred, Ofglen Of Glen); their only identity is as the Commander's property. "Offred" is also a pun on the word "offered", as in "offered as a sacrifice," as well as a play on the words "off-red", referencing the color that handmaids wear and the character's frustrations with her assigned position.[6] It is implied that her birth name is June. The women in training to be handmaids whisper names across their beds at night. The names are "Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June", and all are later accounted for except June. In addition, one of the Aunts tells the handmaids-in-training to stop "mooning and June-ing".[10] Miner suggests that "June" is a pseudonym. As "Mayday" is the name of the Gilead resistance, June could be an invention by the protagonist. The Nunavit conference covered in the epilogue takes place in June.[11] Atwood wrote that it was not her original intention to imply that Offred's real name is June "but it fits, so readers are welcome to it if they wish."[6]

text: The Commander[edit]

text: The Commander says that he is a sort of scientist and was previously involved in something similar to market research, pre-Gilead. Later, it is hypothesized, but not confirmed, that he might have been one of the architects of the Republic and its laws. Presumably, his first name is "Fred", though that, too, may be a pseudonym.

text: He engages in forbidden intellectual pursuits with Offred, such as playing Scrabble, and introduces her to a secret club that serves as a brothel for high-ranking officers. Offred learns that the Commander carried on a similar relationship with his previous handmaid and that she killed herself when his wife found out. In the epilogue the academics speculate that one of two figures, both instrumental in the establishment of Gilead, may have been Fred, based on his first name. It is strongly suggested that the Commander was a man named Frederick R. Waterford who was killed in a purge shortly after Offred was taken away, charged with harboring an enemy agent.

text: Serena Joy[edit]

text: Serena Joy is a former televangelist and the Commander's wife in the fundamentalist theonomy. The state took away her power and public recognition, and tries to hide her past as a television figure. Offred identifies her master's wife by recalling seeing her on TV when she was a little girl early on Saturday mornings while waiting for the cartoons to air. Believed to be sterile (although the suggestion is made that the Commander is sterile, Gileadean laws attribute sterility only to women), she is forced to accept that he has use of a handmaid. She resents having to take part in the monthly fertility ritual. She strikes a deal with Offred to arrange for her to have sex with Nick in order to become pregnant. According to Professor Pieixoto in the epilogue, "Serena Joy" or "Pam" are pseudonyms; the character's real name is implied to be Thelma.

text: Ofglen[edit]

text: Ofglen is a neighbour of Offred's and a fellow Handmaid. She is partnered with Offred to do the daily shopping. Handmaids are never alone and are expected to police each other's behaviour. Ofglen is a member of the Mayday resistance. In contrast to Offred, she is daring. She knocks out a Mayday spy who is to be tortured and killed in order to save him the pain of a violent death. Offred is told that when Ofglen vanishes, it is because she has committed suicide before the government can take her into custody due to her membership in the resistance, possibly to avoid giving away any information.

text: A new handmaid, also called Ofglen, takes Ofglen's place, and is assigned as Offred's shopping partner. She threatens Offred against any thought of resistance. She breaks protocol by telling her what happened to the first Ofglen.

text: Nick[edit]

text: Nick is the Commander's chauffeur, who lives above the garage. By Serena Joy's arrangement, he and Offred start a sexual relationship to increase her chance of getting pregnant. If she were unable to bear the Commander a child, she would be declared sterile and shipped to the ecological wastelands of the Colonies. Offred begins to develop feelings for him. Nick is an ambiguous character, and Offred does not know if he is a party loyalist or part of the resistance, though he identifies himself as the former. The epilogue suggests that he really was part of the resistance, and aided Offred in escaping the Commander's house.

text: Moira[edit]

text: Moira has been a close friend of Offred's since college. A lesbian, she has resisted the homophobia of Gilead society. Moira is taken to be a Handmaid soon after Offred. She escapes by stealing an Aunt's pass and clothes, but Offred later finds her working as a prostitute in a party-run brothel. She was caught and chose the brothel rather than be sent to the Colonies.

text: Luke[edit]

text: Luke was Offred's husband prior to the formation of Gilead. He had divorced his first wife to marry her. Under Gilead, all divorces were retroactively nullified, resulting in Offred being considered an adulteress and their daughter a bastard. Offred was forced to become a Handmaid and her daughter was given to a loyalist family. Since their attempt to escape to Canada, Offred has heard nothing of Luke.

text: Professor Pieixoto[edit]

text: Pieixoto is the "co-discoverer [with Professor Knotly Wade] of Offred's tapes". In his presentation at an academic conference, he talks about "the 'Problems of Authentication in Reference to The Handmaid's Tale'".[9]

text: Setting[edit]

text: The novel is set in an indeterminate future, speculated to be around the year 2005,[12] with a fundamentalist theonomy ruling the territory of what had been the United States but is now the Republic of Gilead. Individuals are segregated by categories and dressed according to their social functions. The complex sumptuary laws (dress codes) play a key role in imposing social control within the new society and serve to distinguish people by sex, occupation, and caste.

text: The action takes place in what once was the Harvard Square neighbourhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts;[13][14] Atwood studied at Radcliffe College, located in this area.

text: Politics[edit]

text: In Gilead, the bodies of fertile women are politicized and controlled. The North American population is falling as more men and women become infertile (though in Gilead, legally, it is only women who can be the cause of infertility). Gilead's treatment of women is based upon a narrow, fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, meaning that women are the property of and subordinate to their husband, father, or head of household. They are not allowed to do anything that would grant them any power independent of this system. They are not allowed to vote, hold a job, read, possess money, or own anything, among many other restrictions. A particular quote from The Handmaid's Tale sums this up: "The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you" (HT 5.2). This describes that there is no way around the societal bounds of women in this new state of government. Handmaids, being not allowed to wed, are given two-year assignments with a commander, and lose their own name: they are called "Of [their Commander's first name]", such as the novel's protagonist, known only as Offred. When a handmaid is reassigned, her name changes with her. Their original identities before the revolution are suppressed, although while being reeducated as handmaids, they surreptitiously share their names with each other.

text: In this book, the government appears to be strong though "no one in Gilead seems to be a true believer in its revolution" (Beauchamp). The Commanders, portrayed via Commander Fred, do not agree with their own doctrines. The commander takes Offred at one point to a brothel in order to have sex with her in an informal setting apart from the Ceremony. The wives, portrayed via Serena Joy, former television evangelist, disobey the rules set forth by their commander husbands. Serena smokes black market cigarettes and expresses the forbidden idea that men may be infertile, and schemes to get Offred impregnated by her chauffeur.

text: Religion[edit]

text: Bruce Miller, the executive producer of The Handmaid's Tale television serial, declared with regard to Atwood's book, as well as his series, that Gilead is "a society that’s based kind of in a perverse misreading of Old Testament laws and codes".[15] The author explains that Gilead tries to embody the "utopian idealism" present in 20th-century régimes, such as Cambodia and Romania, as well as earlier New England Puritanism.[16] Both Atwood and Miller stated that the people running Gilead are "not genuinely Christian".[17][15] The group running Gilead, according to Atwood, is "not really interested in religion; they're interested in power."[18] In fact, in her prayers to God, June (Offred), reflecting on Gilead, prays “I don't believe for an instant that what's going on out there is what You meant…. I suppose I should say I forgive whoever did this, and whatever they’re doing now. I’ll try, but it isn’t easy.”[19] Margaret Atwood, writing on this, says that "Offred herself has a private version of the Lord's Prayer and refuses to believe that this regime has been mandated by a just and merciful God."[20] Christian churches that do not support the actions of the Sons of Jacob are systematically demolished, and the people living in Gilead are never seen attending church.[15] Christian denominations, including Quakers, Baptists and Roman Catholics, as well as Jews, are specifically named as enemies of the Sons of Jacob.[18][15] To this end, the book includes a scene in which a Catholic Christian nun is "forced to renounce her vow of chastity in order to become a child-bearing handmaid."[17] Likewise, a Catholic Christian priest was hanged from a bridge for refusing to renounce his faith.[21] Atwood pits Quaker Christians against the régime by having them help the oppressed, something she feels they would do in reality: "The Quakers have gone underground, and are running an escape route to Canada, as—I suspect—they would."[20]

text: Caste and class[edit]

text: African Americans, the main non-white ethnic group in this society, are called the Children of Ham. A state TV broadcast mentions they have been relocated en masse to "National Homelands" in the Midwest, which are suggestive of the Apartheid-era homelands set up by South Africa. Roman Catholics are only briefly mentioned: nuns who refuse conversion are considered "Unwomen" and banished to the Colonies, owing to their reluctance to marry and refusal (or inability) to bear children. Priests unwilling to convert are executed and hanged from the Wall. Jews are called Sons of Jacob, also the name of the fundamentalist group that rules the Republic of Gilead. Offred observes that Jews refusing to convert are allowed to emigrate to Israel, and most choose to leave. However, in the Epilogue, Professor Pieixoto reveals that many of the emigrating Jews ended up being dumped into the sea while on the ships ostensibly tasked with transporting them to Israel, due to privatization of the "repatriation program" and capitalists' effort to maximize profits. Offred mentions that many Jews who chose to stay were caught secretly practicing Judaism and executed.

text: Gender and occupation[edit]

text: The sexes are strictly divided. Gilead's society values reproduction by white women most highly. Women are categorised "hierarchically according to class status and reproductive capacity" as well as "metonymically colour-coded according to their function and their labour" (Kauffman 232). The Commander expresses the prevailing opinion that women are considered intellectually and emotionally inferior to men.

text: Women are segregated by clothing, as are men. With rare exception, men wear military or paramilitary uniforms, which takes away their individualism as it does the women, but also gives them a sense of bravado and empowerment. All classes of men and women are defined by the colours they wear (as in Aldous Huxley's dystopian Brave New World), drawing on colour symbolism and psychology. All lower-status individuals are regulated by this dress code. All non-persons are banished to the "Colonies" (usually forced-labor camps in which they clean up radioactive waste, becoming exposed and dying painful deaths as a result). Sterile, unmarried women are considered to be non-persons. Both men and women sent there wear grey dresses.

text: Women[edit]

text: Six main categories of "legitimate" women make up mainstream society. Two chief categories of "illegitimate" women live outside of mainstream society:

text: Legitimate women[edit]

text: The division of labour among the women generates some resentment. Marthas, Wives and Econowives perceive Handmaids as promiscuous and are taught to scorn them. Offred mourns that the women of the various groups have lost their ability to empathize with each other. They are divided in their oppression.

text: Illegitimate women[edit]

text: Men[edit]

text: Men are classified into four main categories:

text: Men who engage in homosexuality or related acts are declared "Gender Traitors"; they are either hanged or sent to the "colonies" to die a slow death.

text: Babies[edit]

text: In this society, birth defects have become increasingly common.

text: There are two main categories of human children:

text: The Ceremony[edit]

text: "The Ceremony" is a non-marital sexual act sanctioned for reproduction. The ritual requires the Handmaid to lie on her back between the legs of the Wife during the sex act as if they were one person. The Wife has to invite the Handmaid to share her power this way; many Wives consider this both humiliating and offensive. Offred describes the ceremony:

text: My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for.[22]

text: Language[edit]

text: In the novel's fictional fundamentalist society, sterile is an "outlawed" word.[23] In this society, there is no such thing as a sterile man anymore. In this culture, women are either fruitful or barren, the latter of which is declared to be an "unwoman" and is sent to the colonies with the rest of the "unwomen" to do life-threatening work until their death, which is, on average, three years.

text: Atwood emphasises how changes in context affect behaviours and attitudes by repeating the phrase "Context is all" throughout the novel, establishing this precept as a motif.[24] Playing the game of Scrabble with her Commander illustrates the key significance of changes in "context"; once "the game of old men and women", the game became forbidden for women to play and therefore "desirable".[25] Through living in a morally rigid society, Offred has come to perceive the world differently from earlier. Offred expresses amazement at how "It has taken so little time to change our minds about things".[26] Wearing revealing clothes and makeup had been part of her former life, but when she sees Japanese tourists dressed that way, she now feels the women are inappropriately dressed.[26]

text: Offred can read but not translate the phrase "nolite te bastardes carborundorum" carved into the closet wall of her small bedroom; this mock-Latin aphorism signifies "Don't let the bastards grind you down".[27] The significance of this phrase is intensified by the challenges the book has faced, creating a "Mise en abyme" as both the protagonist and the reader decipher subversive texts.

text: Genre classification[edit]

text: In interviews and essays Atwood has discussed generic classification of The Handmaid's Tale as "science fiction" or "speculative fiction", observing:

text: I like to make a distinction between science fiction proper and speculative fiction. For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do, such as going through a wormhole in space to another universe; and speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand, such as DNA identification and credit cards, and that takes place on Planet Earth. But the terms are fluid.[3]

text: Hugo-winning science fiction critic David Langford observed in a column: "The Handmaid's Tale won the very first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. She's been trying to live this down ever since." He says:

text: Atwood prefers to say that she writes speculative fiction—a term coined by SF author Robert A. Heinlein. As she told the Guardian, "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." She used a subtly different phrasing for New Scientist, "Oryx and Crake is not science fiction. It is fact within fiction. Science fiction is when you have rockets and chemicals." So it was very cruel of New Scientist to describe this interview in the contents list as: "Margaret Atwood explains why science is crucial to her science fiction." ... Play it again, Ms Atwood—this time for the Book-of-the-Month Club: "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians." On BBC1 Breakfast News the distinguished author explained that science fiction, as opposed to what she writes, is characterized by "talking squids in outer space".[4]

text: In distinguishing between these genre labels science fiction and speculative fiction, Atwood acknowledges that others may use the terms interchangeably. But she notes her interest in this type of work to explore themes in ways that "realistic fiction" cannot do.[3]

text: Historical context[edit]

text: Fitting with her claims that The Handmaid's Tale is a work of speculative fiction, not science fiction, Atwood's novel offers a satirical view of various social, political, and religious trends of the 1980s United States. Further, Atwood questions what would happen if these trends, and especially "casually held attitudes about women" were taken to their logical end.[28] Atwood continues to argue that all of the scenarios offered in The Handmaid's Tale have actually occurred in real life—in an interview she gave regarding Oryx and Crake, Atwood maintains that "As with The Handmaid's Tale, I didn't put in anything that we haven't already done, we're not already doing, we're seriously trying to do, coupled with trends that are already in progress... So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil."[29] Atwood was also known to carry around newspaper clippings to her various interviews to support her fiction's basis in reality.[30] Atwood has explained that The Handmaid's Tale is a response to those who claim the oppressive, totalitarian, and religious governments that have taken hold in other countries throughout the years "can't happen here"—but in this work, she has tried to show how such a takeover might play out.[31]

text: Atwood's inspiration for the Republic of Gilead came from her time studying early American Puritans while at Harvard, which she attended on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship.[28] Atwood argues that the modern view of the Puritans—that they came to America to flee religious persecution in England and set up a religiously tolerant society—is misleading, and that instead, these Puritan leaders wanted to establish a monolithic theocracy where religious dissent would not be accepted.[28] Atwood also had a personal connection to the Puritans, and she dedicates the novel to her own ancestor Mary Webster, who was accused of witchcraft in Puritan New England but survived her hanging.[32] Due to the totalitarian nature of Gileadan society, Atwood, in creating the setting, drew from the "utopian idealism" present in 20th century régimes, such as Cambodia and Romania, as well as earlier New England Puritanism.[16] Atwood has argued that a coup, such as the one depicted in The Handmaid's Tale, would misuse religion in order to achieve its own ends:[33]

text: ... if you wanted to seize power in the US, abolish liberal democracy and set up a dictatorship, how would you go about it? What would be your cover story? It would not resemble any form of communism or socialism: those would be too unpopular... Nations never build apparently radical forms of government on foundations that aren't there already. Thus China replaced a state bureaucracy with a similar state bureaucracy under a different name, the USSR replaced the dreaded imperial secret police with an even more dreaded secret police, and so forth. The deep foundation of the US – so went my thinking – was not the comparatively recent 18th-century Enlightenment structures of the republic, with their talk of equality and their separation of church and state, but the heavy-handed theocracy of 17th-century Puritan New England, with its marked bias against women, which would need only the opportunity of a period of social chaos to reassert itself. Like any theocracy, this one would select a few passages from the Bible to justify its actions, and it would lean heavily towards the Old Testament, not towards the New.[16]

text: Atwood, with respect to those leading Gilead, further stated:[18]

text: I don't consider these people to be Christians because they do not have at the core of their behavior and ideologies what I, in my feeble Canadian way, would consider to be the core of Christianity … and that would be not only love your neighbors but love your enemies. That would also be 'I was sick and you visited me not' and such and such …And that would include also concern for the environment, because you can't love your neighbor or even your enemy, unless you love your neighbor's oxygen, food, and water. You can't love your neighbor or your enemy if you're presuming policies that are going to cause those people to die. … Of course faith can be a force for good and often has been. So faith is a force for good particularly when people are feeling beleaguered and in need of hope. So you can have bad iterations and you can also have the iteration in which people have got too much power and then start abusing it. But that is human behavior, so you can't lay it down to religion. You can find the same in any power situation, such as politics or ideologies that purport to be atheist. Need I mention the former Soviet Union? So it is not a question of religion making people behave badly. It is a question of human beings getting power and then wanting more of it.[18]

text: In the same vein, Atwood also declared that "In the real world today, some religious groups are leading movements for the protection of vulnerable groups, including women."[20] Atwood also draws connections between the ways in which Gilead's leaders maintain their power and other examples of actual totalitarian governments. In her interviews, Atwood offers up Iran and Afghanistan as examples of religious theocracies forcing women out of the public sphere and into their homes, as in Gilead.[30][28] The "state-sanctioned murder of dissidents" was inspired by the Philippines, and the last General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party Nicolae Ceausescu's obsession with increasing the birth rate led to the strict policing of pregnant women and the outlawing of birth control and abortion.[30] However, Atwood clearly explains that many of these deplorable acts were not just present in other cultures and countries, "but within Western society, and within the 'Christian' tradition itself".[16]

text: The Republic of Gilead struggles with infertility, making Offred's services as a Handmaid vital to producing children and thus reproducing the society. Handmaids themselves are "untouchable", but their ability to signify status is equated to that of slaves or servants throughout history.[16] Atwood connects their concerns with infertility to real-life problems our world faces, such as radiation, chemical pollution, and venereal disease (HIV/AIDS is specifically mentioned in the "Historical Notes" section at the end of the novel, which was a relatively new disease at the time of Atwood's writing whose long-term impact was likely still unknown). Atwood's strong stance on environmental issues and their negative consequences for our society has presented itself in other works such as her MaddAddam trilogy, and refers back to her growing up with biologists and her own scientific curiosity.[34]

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: The Handmaid's Tale was well received by critics, helping to cement Atwood's status as a prominent writer of the 20th century. Not only was the book deemed well-written and compelling, but Atwood's work was notable for sparking intense debates both in and out of academia.[35] Atwood maintains that the Republic of Gilead is only an extrapolation of trends already seen in the United States at the time of her writing, a view supported by other scholars studying The Handmaid's Tale.[36] Indeed, many have placed The Handmaid's Tale in the same category of dystopian fiction as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World,[31] with the added feature of confronting patriarchy, a categorization that Atwood has accepted and reiterated in many articles and interviews.[37] Even today, many reviewers hold that Atwood's novel remains as foreboding and powerful as ever, largely because of its basis in historical fact.[38][39] Yet when her book was first published in 1985, not all reviewers were convinced of the "cautionary tale" Atwood presented. For example, Mary McCarthy's New York Times review argued that The Handmaid's Tale lacked the "surprised recognition" necessary for readers to see "our present selves in a distorting mirror, of what we may be turning into if current trends are allowed to continue".[40]

text: In the aftermath of the television series' debut in 2017, there was much debate on whether parallels could be drawn between the series (and by extension, this book) and American society following Donald Trump's and Mike Pence's election as President of the United States and Vice President of the United States, respectively.[41][42]

text: Feminist reading[edit]

text: Much of the discussion about The Handmaid's Tale has centered on its categorization as feminist literature. Atwood does not see the Republic of Gilead as a purely feminist dystopia, as not all men have greater rights than women.[16] Instead, this society presents a typical dictatorship: "shaped like a pyramid, with the powerful of both sexes at the apex, the men generally outranking the women at the same level; then descending levels of power and status with men and women in each, all the way down to the bottom, where the unmarried men must serve in the ranks before being awarded an Econowife".[16] Additionally, Atwood has argued that while some of the observations that informed the content of The Handmaid's Tale may be feminist, her novel is not meant to say "one thing to one person" or serve as a political message—instead, The Handmaid's Tale is "a study of power, and how it operates and how it deforms or shapes the people who are living within that kind of regime".[31][37] Some scholars have offered such a feminist interpretation, however, connecting Atwood's use of religious fundamentalism in the pages of The Handmaid's Tale to a condemnation of their presence in current American society.[43][44] Yet others have argued that The Handmaid's Tale critiques typical notions of feminism, as Atwood's novel appears to subvert the traditional "women helping women" ideals of the movement and turn toward the possibility of "the matriarchal network ... and a new form of misogyny: women's hatred of women".[45]

text: Awards[edit]

text:
1985 – Governor General's Award for English language fiction (winner)
1986 – Booker Prize (nominated)
1986 – Nebula Award (nominated)
1987 – Arthur C. Clarke Award (winner)[a]
1987 – Prometheus Award (nominated)[b]

text: Academic reception[edit]

text: Atwood's novels, and especially her works of speculative fiction The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake, are frequently offered as examples for the final, open-ended question on the North American Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition exam each year.[46] As such, her books are often assigned in high-school classrooms to students taking this Advanced Placement course, despite the mature themes the work presents. Atwood herself has expressed surprise that her books are being assigned to high-school audiences, largely due to her own censored education in the 1950s, but she has assured readers that this increased attention from high-school students has not altered the material she has chosen to write about since.[47]

text: Many people have expressed discontent at The Handmaid's Tale's presence in the classroom, as it has been frequently challenged or banned over the last 30 years. Some of these challenges have come from parents concerned about the explicit sexuality and other adult themes represented in the book. Others have argued that The Handmaid's Tale depicts a negative view of religion, a view supported by several academics who propose that Atwood's work satirizes contemporary religious fundamentalists in the United States, offering a feminist critique of the trends this movement to the Right represents.[43][44]

text: The American Library Association (ALA) lists The Handmaid's Tale as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000".[48] Atwood participated in discussing The Handmaid's Tale as the subject of an ALA discussion series titled "One Book, One Conference".[49]

text: Some complaints have included:

text:
1990: Challenged at Rancho Cotate High School, Rohnert Park, California, as too explicit for students.
1992: Challenged in schools in Waterloo, Iowa, reportedly because of profanity, lurid passages about sex, and statements defamatory to minorities, God, women, and the disabled.
1993: Removed because of profanity and sex from the Chicopee, Massachusetts, high-school English class reading list.
1998: Challenged for use in Richland, Washington, high-school English classes, along with six other titles determined to be "poor quality literature and [that] stress suicide, illicit sex, violence, and hopelessness".
1999: Challenged because of graphic sex, but retained on the advanced placement English list, at George D. Chamberlain High School in Tampa, Florida.
2000: Downgraded from "required" to "optional" on the summer reading list for eleventh graders in the Upper Moreland School District near Philadelphia due to "age-inappropriate" subject matter.
2001: Challenged, but retained, in the Dripping Springs, Texas, senior Advanced Placement English course as an optional reading assignment. Some parents were offended by the book's descriptions of sexual encounters.
2006: Initially banned by Superintendent Ed Lyman from an advanced placement English curriculum in the Judson independent school district in Texas, after a parent complained. Lyman had overruled the recommendation of a committee of teachers, students, and parents; the committee appealed the decision to the school board, which overturned his ban.[50]

text: According to Education Reporter Kristin Rushowy of the Toronto Star (16 January 2009), in 2008 a parent in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, wrote a letter to his son's high school principal, asking that the book no longer be assigned as required reading, stating that the novel is "rife with brutality towards and mistreatment of women (and men at times), sexual scenes, and bleak depression".[51] Rushowy quotes the response of Russell Morton Brown, a retired University of Toronto English professor, who acknowledged that

text: "The Handmaid's Tale wasn't likely written for 17-year-olds, but neither are a lot of things we teach in high school, like Shakespeare... And they are all the better for reading it. They are on the edge of adulthood already, and there's no point in coddling them," he said, adding, "they aren't coddled in terms of mass media today anyway"... He said the book has been accused of being anti-Christian and, more recently, anti-Islamic because the women are veiled and polygamy is allowed... But that "misses the point", said Brown. "It's really anti-fundamentalism."[51]

text: In her earlier account (14 January 2009), Rushowy reported that a Toronto District School Board committee was "reviewing the novel". While noting that "The Handmaid's Tale is listed as one of the 100 'most frequently challenged books' from 1990 to 1999 on the American Library Association's website", Rushowy reports that "The Canadian Library Association says there is 'no known instance of a challenge to this novel in Canada' but says the book was called anti-Christian and pornographic by parents after being placed on a reading list for secondary students in Texas in the 1990s."[52]

text: In November 2012 two parents in Guilford County, North Carolina protested against inclusion of the book on a required reading list at a local high school. The parents presented the school board with a petition signed by 2,300 people, prompting a review of the book by the school's media advisory committee. According to local news reports, one of the parents said "she felt Christian students are bullied in society, in that they're made to feel uncomfortable about their beliefs by non-believers. She said including books like The Handmaid's Tale contributes to that discomfort, because of its negative view on religion and its anti-biblical attitudes toward sex."[53]

text: Other use in academia[edit]

text: In institutions of higher education, professors have found The Handmaid's Tale to be useful, largely because of its historical and religious basis and Atwood's captivating delivery. The novel's teaching points include: introducing politics and the social sciences to students in a more concrete way;[54][55] demonstrating the importance of reading to our freedom, both intellectual and political;[56] and acknowledging the "most insidious and violent manifestations of power in Western history" in a compelling manner.[57] The chapter entitled "Historical Notes" at the end of the novel also represents a warning to academics who run the risk of misreading and misunderstanding historical texts, pointing to the satirized Professor Pieixoto as an example of a male scholar who has taken over and overpowered Offred's narrative with his own interpretation.[58]

text: In other media[edit]

text: Film[edit]

text: The 1990 film The Handmaid's Tale was based on a screenplay by Harold Pinter and directed by Volker Schlöndorff. It stars Natasha Richardson as Offred, Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy, and Robert Duvall as The Commander (Fred).

text: Television[edit]

text: Hulu has produced a 10-episode series of the novel starring Elisabeth Moss as Offred. The first three episodes were released on April 26, 2017, with subsequent episodes following on a weekly basis. Margaret Atwood served as consulting producer.[59] The show has been renewed for a second season, coming out in early 2018.

text: Radio[edit]

text:
A dramatic adaptation of the novel for radio was produced for BBC Radio 4 by John Dryden in 2000.
A Canadian dramatic adaptation for radio was written by playwright Michael O'Brien and produced on CBC Radio in 2002.

text: Audio[edit]

text:
An audiobook of the unabridged text, read by Claire Danes (ISBN 9781491519110), won the 2013 Audie Award for fiction.[60]
In 2014, Canadian band Lakes of Canada released their album Transgressions, which is intended to be a concept album inspired by The Handmaid's Tale.[61]

text: Stage[edit]

text:
The very first authorized stage adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale was written and directed by Bruce G. Shapiro and performed at Tufts Arena Theater, Tufts University, in 1989. The late actress Molly Glynn played "Offred." The production was very well received and highly regarded.[62]
An operatic adaptation, The Handmaid's Tale, by Poul Ruders, premiered in Copenhagen on 6 March 2000, and was performed by the English National Opera, in London, in 2003.[63] It was the opening production of the 2004–2005 season of the Canadian Opera Company.[64]
A stage adaptation of the novel, by Brendon Burns, for the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, England, toured the UK in 2002.[65]
A ballet adaptation choreographed by Lila York and produced by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet premiered on 16 October 2013. Amanda Green appeared as Offred and Alexander Gamayunov as The Commander.[66]
A one-woman stage show, adapted from the novel, by Joseph Stollenwerk premiered in the U.S. in January 2015.[67]


document_title: Biltmore Estate

question_text: when was the last time someone lived in the biltmore house

root

text: Biltmore Estate

text: History[edit]

text: In the 1880s, at the height of the Gilded Age, George Washington Vanderbilt II, youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, began to make regular visits with his mother, Maria Louisa Kissam Vanderbilt (1821–1896),  to the Asheville, North Carolina, area. He loved the scenery and climate so much that he decided to create his own summer estate in the area, which he called his "little mountain escape", just as his older brothers and sisters had built opulent summer houses in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, and Hyde Park, New York. Vanderbilt named his estate Biltmore derived from "Bildt," Vanderbilt's ancestors' place of origin in Holland, and "More", Anglo-Saxon for open, rolling land.[3] A portion of the estate was once the community of Shiloh.[4] Vanderbilt bought almost 700 parcels of land, including over 50 farms and at least five cemeteries. A spokesperson for the estate said in 2017 that archives show much of the land "was in very poor condition, and many of the farmers and other landowners were glad to sell."[5]

tag: p

text: Construction of the house began in 1889 and continued well into 1896. In order to facilitate such a large project, a woodworking factory and brick kiln, which produced 32,000 bricks a day, were built onsite, and a three-mile railroad spur was constructed to bring materials to the building site. Construction on the main house required the labor of well over 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons.[6] Vanderbilt went on extensive buying trips overseas as construction on the house was in progress. He returned to North Carolina with thousands of furnishings for his newly built home including tapestries, hundreds of carpets, prints, linens, and decorative objects, all dating between the 15th century and the late 19th century. Among the few American-made items were the more practical oak drop-front desk, rocking chairs, a walnut grand piano, bronze candlesticks and a wicker wastebasket.[7]

text: George Vanderbilt opened his opulent estate on Christmas Eve 1895 to invited family and friends from across the country, who were encouraged to enjoy leisure and country pursuits. Notable guests to the estate over the years included author Edith Wharton, novelist Henry James, ambassadors Joseph Hodges Choate and Larz Anderson, and Presidents William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama. George married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser in 1898 in Paris, France; their only child, Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt, was born at Biltmore in the Louis XV room in 1900, and grew up at the estate.

text: Driven by the impact of the newly imposed income taxes, and the fact that the estate was getting harder to manage economically, Vanderbilt initiated the sale of 87,000 acres (352 km²) to the federal government. After Vanderbilt's unexpected death in 1914 of complications from an emergency appendectomy, his widow completed the sale to carry out her husband's wish that the land remain unaltered, and that property became the nucleus of the Pisgah National Forest.[6] Overwhelmed with running such a large estate, Edith began consolidating her interests and sold Biltmore Estate Industries in 1917 and Biltmore Village in 1921. Edith intermittently occupied the house, living in an apartment carved out of the former Bachelors' Wing, until the marriage of her daughter to John Francis Amherst Cecil in April 1924. The Cecils went on to have two sons who were born in the same room as their mother.

text: In an attempt to bolster the estate's financial situation during the Great Depression, Cornelia and her husband opened Biltmore to the public in March 1930 at the request of the City of Asheville, which hoped the attraction would revitalize the area with tourism.[8]  Biltmore closed during World War II and in 1942, 62 paintings and 17 sculptures were moved to the estate by train from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to protect them in the event of an attack on the United States. The Music Room on the first floor was never finished, so it was used for storage until 1944, when the possibility of an attack became more remote. Among the works stored were the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and works by Rembrandt, Raphael, and Anthony van Dyck.  David Finley, the gallery director, was a friend of Edith Vanderbilt and had stayed at the estate.[9]

text: After the divorce of the Cecils in 1934, Cornelia left the estate never to return; however, John Cecil maintained his residence in the Bachelors' Wing until his death in 1954. Their eldest son George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil, occupied rooms in the wing until 1956. At this point Biltmore House ceased to be a family residence and has continued to be operated as a historic house museum.

text:
Younger son William A. V. Cecil, Sr. returned to the estate in the late 1950s and joined his brother to manage the estate when it was in financial trouble and make it a profitable and self-sustaining enterprise like his grandfather envisioned. He eventually inherited the estate upon the death of his mother, Cornelia, in 1976, while his brother, George, inherited the then more profitable dairy farm which was split off into Biltmore Farms. In 1995, while celebrating the 100th anniversary of the estate, Cecil turned over control of the company to his son, William A.V. Cecil, Jr.
[10] The Biltmore Company is privately held and of the 4,306.86 acres that make up Biltmore Estate, only 1.36 acres are in the city limits of Asheville, and the Biltmore House is not part of any municipality.[11]

text: The estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963,[12] and remains a major tourist attraction in Western North Carolina with 1.4 million visitors each year.[10]

text: After the death of William A. V. Cecil in October 2017 and his wife Mimi Cecil in November, their daughter Dini Pickering as board chair and their son Bill Cecil as CEO announced that the estate would continue to be run the same way. The house is assessed at $157.2 million but due to an agricultural deferment, county property taxes are paid on only $79.1 million of that.[10]

text: Architecture[edit]

text: Vanderbilt commissioned prominent New York architect Richard Morris Hunt, who had previously designed houses for various Vanderbilt family members, to design the house in the Châteauesque style, using French Renaissance chateaus that Vanderbilt and Hunt had visited in early 1889, including Château de Blois, Chenonceau and Chambord in France and Waddesdon Manor in England, as inspiration with their steeply pitched roofs, turrets and sculptural ornamentation.[13] Hunt sited the four-story Indiana limestone-built home to face east with a 375-foot facade to fit into the mountainous topography behind. The facade is asymmetrically balanced with two projecting wings connecting to the entrance tower with an open loggia to the left side and a windowed arcade to the right which held the Winter Garden that was fashionable during the Victorian era. The entrance tower contains a series of windows with decorated jambs that extend from the front door to the most decorated dormer at Biltmore on the fourth floor. The carved decorations include trefoils, flowing tracery, rosettes, gargoyles, and at prominent lookouts, grotesques. The staircase is one of the more prominent features of the east facade, with its three-story, highly decorated winding balustrade with carved statues of St. Louis and Joan of Arc by the Austrian-born architectural sculptor Karl Bitter.

text:
External video

 Biltmore, 24:36, C-SPAN[14]

tag: table

text: The south facade has the smallest dimensions for the house and is dominated by three large dormers on the east side and a polygonal turret on the west side. An arbor is attached to the house and is accessed from the library which is located on the ground floor. On the north end of the house, Hunt placed the attached stables, carriage house and its courtyard to protect the house and gardens from the wind. The 12,000-square-foot complex housed Vanderbilt's prized driving horses and the carriage house opposite the stables stored his 20 carriages in addition to any of his guest's carriages.

text: The rear western elevation is less elaborate than the front facade, with some windows not having any decoration at all. Two matching polygonal towers in the center are connected to the polygonal south turret by an open loggia that opens the main rooms of the house to the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. The loggia is decorated overhead with terracotta tiles set in a herringbone pattern. The self-supporting ceramic tile vault and arch system was used extensively inside and outside of Biltmore, and was patented by Rafael Guastavino, a Spanish architect and engineer, who personally supervised the installation. The limestone columns were carved to reflect the sunlight in aesthetically pleasing and varied ways per Vanderbilt's wish. The rusticated base is a contrast to the smooth limestone used on the remainder of the house.

text: The steeply pitched roof is punctuated by 16 chimneys and covered with slate tiles that were affixed one by one. Each tile was drilled at the corners and wired onto the attic’s steel infrastructure. Copper flashing was then installed at the junctions to prevent water from penetrating. The fanciful flashing on the ridge of the roof was embossed with George Vanderbilt’s initials and motifs from his family crest, though the original gold leaf no longer survives.[15]

text: Biltmore House had electricity from the time it was built. With electricity less safe and fire more of a danger at the time, the house had six separate sections divided by brick fire walls.[16]

text: Vanderbilt paid little attention to the family business or his own investments and it is believed that the construction and upkeep of Biltmore depleted much of his inheritance.[citation needed]

text: Interiors[edit]

text: First floor[edit]

text:
Biltmore has four acres of floor space and a total of 250 rooms in the house including 35 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as electric elevators, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms, and a call-bell system.[13] The principal rooms of the house are located on the ground floor. To the right of the marbled Entrance Hall, the octagonal, sunken Winter Garden is surrounded by stone archways with a ceiling of architecturally sculptured wood and multifaceted glass. The centerpiece is a marble and bronze fountain sculpture titled Boy Stealing Geese created by Karl Bitter. On the walls just outside the Winter Garden are copies of the Parthenon frieze. The Banquet Hall is the largest room in the house, measuring 42 feet wide and 72 feet long, with a 70-foot-high barrel-vaulted ceiling. The table could seat 64 guests surrounded by rare Flemish tapestries and a triple fireplace that spans one end of the hall. On the opposite end of the hall is an organ gallery that houses a 1916 Skinner pipe organ. Left unfinished with bare brick walls, the Music Room was not completed and opened to the public until 1976. It showcases a mantle designed by Hunt, and a large engraving by Albrecht Dürer called the Triumphal Arch commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. The mantle had been stored in the stable for over 80 years.
To the left of the entrance hall is the 90-foot-long Tapestry Gallery, which leads to the Library, featuring three 16th-century tapestries representing The Triumph of Virtue Over Vice. Elsewhere on the walls are family portraits by John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini and James Whistler. The two-story Library contains over 10,000 volumes in eight languages, reflecting George Vanderbilt's broad interests in classic literature as well as works on art, history, architecture, and gardening. The second-floor balcony is accessed by an ornate walnut spiral staircase. The baroque detailing of the room is enhanced by the rich walnut paneling and the ceiling painting, The Chariot of Aurora, brought to Biltmore by Vanderbilt from the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, Italy. The painting by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini is the most important work by the artist still in existence.[17]

text: Second floor[edit]

text: The second floor is accessed by the cantilevered Grand Staircase of 107 steps spiraling around a four-story, wrought-iron chandelier holding 72 light bulbs.[18] The Second Floor Living Hall is an extension of the grand staircase as a formal hall and portrait gallery, and was restored to its original configuration in 2013. Several large-scale masterpieces are displayed in the hall, including two John Singer Sargent portraits of Biltmore's architect, Richard Morris Hunt, and landscaper, Frederick Law Olmsted, both commissioned for the home by Vanderbilt.[19] Located nearby in the south tower is George Vanderbilt's gilded bedroom with furniture designed by Hunt. His bedroom connects to his wife's Louis XV-style, oval-shaped bedroom in the north tower through a Jacobean carved oak paneled sitting room with an intricate ceiling.

text: The suite of rooms includes the Damask Room; the Claude Room, named after one of Vanderbilt's favorite artists, Claude Lorrain; the Tyrolean Chimney Room; and the most grand, the Louis XV Room, so named due to its architectural scheme and furnishings that were very popular in the late nineteenth century. The suite was restored and opened to the public for the first time in 100 years in 2011.[20]

text: Third and fourth floors[edit]

text: The third floor has a number of guest rooms with names that describe the furnishing or artist that they were decorated with. The fourth floor has 21 bedrooms that were inhabited by housemaids, laundresses, and other female servants. Also included on the fourth floor is an Observatory with a circular staircase that leads to a wrought iron balcony with doorways to the rooftop where Vanderbilt could view his estate. Male servants were not housed here, however, but instead resided in rooms above the stable and complex.[13]

text: Bachelors' wing[edit]

text: The Billiard Room is decorated with an ornamental plaster ceiling and rich oak paneling and was equipped with both a custom-made pool table and a carom table (table without pockets). The room was mainly frequented by men, but ladies were welcome to enter as well. Secret door panels on either side of the fireplace led to the private quarters of the Bachelors’ Wing where female guests and staff members were not allowed. The wing includes the Smoking Room, which was fashionable for country houses, and the Gun Room, which held mounted trophies and displayed George Vanderbilt’s gun collection.[13]

text: Basement[edit]

text: Guests of the estate could enjoy other activities that were found on the basement level, including an indoor 70,000-gallon (265,000-litre and 265-cubic meter) heated swimming pool with underwater lighting, one of the nation's first bowling alleys installed in a private residence, and a gymnasium with once state-of-the-art fitness equipment. The service hub of the house is also found in the largest basement in the US, as the location for the main kitchen, pastry kitchen, rotisserie kitchen, walk-in refrigerators that provided an early form of mechanical refrigeration, the servants' dining hall, laundry rooms and additional bedrooms for staff.

text: Park and landscape[edit]

text: Wanting the best, Vanderbilt envisioned a park-like setting for his home and employed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds. However, Olmsted was not impressed with the condition of the 125,000 acres (195 sq mi; 510 km2) and advised for a park surrounding the house, establishing farms along the river and replanting the rest as a commercial timber forest, a plan to which Vanderbilt agreed. Gifford Pinchot and later Carl A. Schenck were hired to manage the forests, with Schenck establishing the first forestry education program in the U.S., the Biltmore Forest School, on the estate grounds in 1898.

text: Another important aspect of the landscaping was the intentionally rustic three-mile (5 km) Approach Road that began at the brick quoined and pebbledash stucco Lodge Gate at the edge of Biltmore Village, and ended at the sphinx-topped stone pillars at the Esplanade. In between, the lane was densely filled with natural and uncultivated looking foliage and shrubbery to provide a relaxing journey for guests.  Olmsted made sure to incorporate 75 acres (30 ha) of formal gardens that had been requested by Vanderbilt for the grounds directly surrounding the house.  He constructed an Italian formal garden, a walled garden, a shrub and rose garden, fountains, and a conservatory with individual rooms for palms and orchids.  There was also a bowling green, an outdoor tea room, and a terrace to incorporate the European statuary that Vanderbilt had brought back from his travels. At the opposite end of the Esplanade is the Rampe Douce, a graduated stairway zigzagging along a rough-cut limestone wall that leads to the grassy slope known as the Vista, topped with a statue of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.[13]

text: Water features were an important aspect of Victorian landscaping and Olmsted incorporated two for the estate: the Bass Pond created from an old creek-fed millpond and the Lagoon. Each was used for guest recreation like fishing and rowing. To supply water for the estate, Olmsted engineered two reservoirs. One was a spring-fed man-made lake on nearby Busbee Mountain. The other was a man-made, brick-lined reservoir, located behind the statue of Diana in the Vista, at an elevation of approximately 266 feet above the Esplanade.[21]

text: Estate[edit]

text: Vanderbilt's idea was to replicate the working estates of Europe. He asked Hunt and Olmsted to design a village with architecturally compatible buildings and picturesque landscaping as a source of income through building rental, a place to help carry out philanthropic programs, and an easy point of access between the estate and the train station.[22] The result was Biltmore Village. The village included rental cottages complete with plumbing and central heating, a post office, shops, doctor's office, school, and a church, known today as the Cathedral of All Souls.[23] Intending that the estate could be self-supporting, Vanderbilt set up scientific forestry programs, poultry farms, cattle farms, hog farms, and a dairy.  His wife, Edith, also enthusiastically supported agricultural reform and promoted the establishment of a state agricultural fair.  In 1901, the Vanderbilts provided financial assistance to Biltmore Industries, started by Biltmore Village resident Eleanor Vance, which taught young people how to make hand-carved furniture, woven baskets, homespun wool fabric, and more.[24]

text: The estate today covers approximately 8,000 acres (13 sq mi; 32 km2) and is split in half by the French Broad River, overseen by The Biltmore Company, a trust set up by the family. The company is a large enterprise that is one of the largest employers in the Asheville area. Restaurants were opened in 1979 and 1987 as well as four gifts shops in 1993. The former dairy barn was converted into the popular Biltmore Winery in 1985. The AAA four-diamond 210-room Inn on Biltmore Estate opened in 2001, and in 2010, the estate debuted Antler Hill Village, as well as a remodeled winery, and connected farmyard.

text: In other media[edit]

text: The Biltmore Estate licenses its name and design elements to a line of housewares, linens, and luggage called "Biltmore For Your Home", marketed exclusively by Belk stores.[25]

text: The house has been featured in "Empires of the Smoky Skies", a scenario in Sid Meier's Civilization V.

text: The estate and its surrounding forest make up the setting of Robert Beatty's 2015 middle-grade novel Serafina and The Black Cloak and its sequels.[26]

text: The grounds and buildings of Biltmore Estate have appeared in a number of major motion pictures and TV series:

text:
Tap Roots (1948)
The Swan (1956)
The Pruitts of Southampton (1966)
Being There (1979)
The Private Eyes (1980)
A Breed Apart (1984)
Mr. Destiny (1990)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Richie Rich (1994)
My Fellow Americans (1996)
Patch Adams (1998)
Return to the Secret Garden (2000)
Hannibal (2001)
One Tree Hill (2003)
The Clearing (2004)
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
Hannibal (2015)

tag: ul


document_title: Labor Code of the Philippines

question_text: who are covered by the labor code of the philippines

text: Labor Code of the Philippines

text: The Labor Code of the Philippines is the legal code governing employment practices and labor relations in the Philippines. It was enacted on Labor day, May 1, 1974 by Late President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos in the exercise of his then extant legislative powers.

text: The Labor Code sets the rules for hiring and firing of private employees; the conditions of work including maximum work hours and overtime; employee benefits such as holiday pay, thirteenth-month pay and retirement pay; and the guidelines in the organization and membership in labor unions as well as in collective bargaining.

text: The Labor Code contains several provisions which are beneficial to labor. It prohibits termination of employment of Private employees except for just or authorized causes as prescribed in Article 282 to 284 of the Code. The right to self-organization of a union is expressly recognized, as is the right of a union to insist on a closed shop.

text: Strikes are also authorized for as long as they comply with the strict requirements under the Code, and workers who organize or participate in illegal strikes may be subject to dismissal. Moreover, Philippine jurisprudence has long applied a rule that any doubts in the interpretation of law, especially the Labor Code, will be resolved in favor of labor and against management.


document_title: List of Prime Ministers of India

question_text: who is the thirteenth prime minister of india

text: List of Prime Ministers of India

text: Key[edit]

text:
Colour key for party of the prime ministers

  Bharatiya Janata Party

  Indian National Congress
designated Indian National Congress (I) 1977–1996[4]

  Janata Dal

  Janata Party

  Janata Party (Secular)

  Samajwadi Janata Party

Other key

№: Incumbent number
† Assassinated or died in office
§ Returned to office after a previous term
RES Resigned
NC Resigned following a no-confidence motion

text: Prime Ministers of India[edit]

text:
№
Name
(birth–death)
Portrait
Prior Office
Party
(Alliance)
Elected constituency
Term of office[5]
Appointed by

1
Jawaharlal Nehru
(1889–1964)

Indian freedom fighter

Indian National Congress
Phulpur, Uttar Pradesh
15 August
1947
27 May
1964[†]
7003613000000000000♠16 years, 286 days
Lord Mountbatten

Rajendra Prasad

–
Gulzarilal Nanda (acting)
(1898–1998)

Minister of Labour and Employment

Indian National Congress
Sabarkantha, Gujarat
27 May
1964
9 June
1964
13 days
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

2
Lal Bahadur Shastri
(1904–1966)

Minister of Home Affairs

Indian National Congress
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
9 June
1964
11 January
1966[†]
7002581000000000000♠1 year, 216 days
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

–
Gulzarilal Nanda (acting)
(1898–1998)

Minister of Home Affairs

Indian National Congress
Sabarkantha, Gujarat
11 January
1966
24 January
1966
13 days
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

3
Indira Gandhi
(1917–1984)

Minister of Information and Broadcasting

Prime Minister (Re-elected)

Indian National Congress
Rajya Sabha MP for Uttar Pradesh
24 January
1966
24 March
1977
7003407700000000000♠11 years, 59 days
V. V. Giri

4
Morarji Desai
(1896–1995)

Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister of India before he resigned in 1969

Janata Party
Surat, Gujarat
24 March
1977
28 July
1979[RES]
7002856000000000000♠2 years, 126 days
B. D. Jatti
(acting President)

5
Charan Singh
(1902–1987)

Minister of Finance

Janata Party (Secular)
with INC
Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh
28 July
1979
14 January
1980[RES]
170 days
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy

6
Indira Gandhi
(1917–1984)

Former Prime Minister

Indian National Congress (I)
Medak, Andhra Pradesh
14 January
1980[§]
31 October
1984[†]
7003175200000000000♠4 years, 291 days
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy

7
Rajiv Gandhi
(1944–1991)

MP for Amethi

Indian National Congress (I)
Amethi, Uttar Pradesh
31 October
1984
2 December
1989
7003185800000000000♠5 years, 32 days
Zail Singh

8
Vishwanath Pratap Singh
(1931–2008)

Minister of Defence

Janata Dal
(National Front)
Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh
2 December
1989
10 November
1990[NC]
343 days
R. Venkataraman

9
Chandra Shekhar
(1927–2007)

MP for Ballia

Samajwadi Janata Party
with INC
Ballia, Uttar Pradesh
10 November
1990
21 June
1991[a]
223 days
R. Venkataraman

10
Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao
(1921–2004)

Minister of External Affairs

Indian National Congress (I)
Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh
21 June
1991
16 May
1996
7003179100000000000♠4 years, 330 days
R. Venkataraman

11
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(born 1924)

Minister of External Affairs

Bharatiya Janata Party
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
16 May
1996
1 June
1996[RES]
16 days
Shankar Dayal Sharma

12
Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda
(born 1933)

Chief Minister of Karnataka

Janata Dal
(United Front)
Rajya Sabha MP for Karnataka
1 June
1996
21 April
1997[RES]
324 days
Shankar Dayal Sharma

13
Inder Kumar Gujral
(1919–2012)

Minister of External Affairs

Janata Dal
(United Front)
Rajya Sabha MP for Bihar
21 April
1997
19 March
1998
332 days
Shankar Dayal Sharma

14
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(born 1924)

Former Prime Minister

Bharatiya Janata Party
(NDA)
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
19 March
1998[§]
22 May
2004
7003225600000000000♠6 years, 64 days
K. R. Narayanan

15
Manmohan Singh
(born 1932)

Minister of Finance

Indian National Congress
(UPA)
Rajya Sabha MP for Assam
22 May
2004
26 May
2014
7003365600000000000♠10 years, 4 days
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Pratibha Patil

16
Narendra Modi
(born 1950)

Chief Minister of Gujarat

Bharatiya Janata Party
(NDA)
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
26 May
2014[6]
Incumbent
7003131700000000000♠3 years, 221 days
Pranab Mukherjee

text: Jump up ^ Chandra Shekhar officially resigned as Prime Minister on 13 March 1991, but he and his ministers continued in office until Rao succeeded him.

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