# Mrs. Hardshaw — In the Midst of Life character guide

> Mrs. Hardshaw in In the Midst of Life by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Hardshaw

**First appearance:** 0065-a-lady-from-redhorse

## Snapshot

The wife whose fevered death in a remote cabin leaves her husband to perform the rituals of burial alone, half-convinced she is not really gone.

## Who they are

She shares the dangers and privations of frontier life with a willing spirit, and when fever takes her there is no physician within miles and no neighbor to summon. Her husband Murlock nurses her for three days, then prepares her body mechanically, unable to weep and unable to accept that she is truly dead. Her death, and the strange events that follow in the cabin, drive the story's meditation on grief as an artist with many instruments, and her memory chains Murlock to a life he might otherwise have abandoned.

## In the story

### [The Man Out of the Nose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_the_midst_of_life_se/chapters/the-man-out-of-the-nose)

John's devoted wife, who supports them by washing clothes, cares for him during his insanity, and sacrificed her own reputation and freedom to help him after his arrest.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_the_midst_of_life_se/characters/mrs_hardshaw
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_the_midst_of_life_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_the_midst_of_life_se/characters