Laura+Keiler.DH

Laura Keiler was a Danish writer who was also a good friend of Ibsen. Much of her life inspired the events of //A Doll's House//, although it is unsure whether she, like Nora, forged a signature ***spoiler alert!*** However, Laura Keiler did take a loan without her husband's knowledge, and when he found out, he had her put in an asylum. When her husband had found out, and her life was in crisis, she asked Ibsen to help her. However, he did not do so either because he did not want to or did not feel able to. However, when he retold the story in //A Doll's House//, his sympathy for Keiler showed as he gave his story a different ending in which the woman came out triumphant. All ended well for Keiler as well, though, because later her husband urged her to come back and live with him and their children, and she went on to become a well-known writer.

Works Cited: "A Doll's House." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. []. Hanssen, Jens-Morten. "Facts about A Doll's House." //Ibsen.net//. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. []. Ibsen, Henrik, Rebecca M. Jones, Sarah Dickenson, and Joanna Ingham. "ALMEIDA THEATRE: HEDDA GABLER." //ALMEIDA THEATRE//. Web. 12 Jan. 2011. []. Törnqvist, Egil. //Ibsen: a Doll's House//. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print.

** Laura Keiler ** === a writer Ibsen first met during his time in Dresden. Laura had written a sequel to one of Ibsen’s plays and sent it to him. The two kept in touch for several years and Ibsen served as a mentor of sorts to the young woman. === === Sometime after their meeting, Laura’s husband, a Danish schoolteacher, contracted tuberculosis. Laura was told that the only way to save her husband’s life was to arrange for them to move to a warmer climate. In order to avoid agitating her husband by asking him for money, Laura secretly arranged to take out a loan with the assistance of a friend. The couple visited Italy where Laura’s husband experienced a full recovery. === === A few years later, Laura visited Ibsen in Munich and related the entire story of events to Suzannah (Ibsen's wife), who passed the details on to her husband. Ibsen had previously heard nothing of Laura’s situation, as she had been careful to keep the whole affair quiet, though he did notice that she was less spirited and seemed to have something heavy weighing on her mind. === === In the early part of 1878, Ibsen received a manuscript and a letter from Laura begging him to pass on her newest novel to his publisher Frederik Hegel. Ibsen refused to recommend the inadequate book and wrote Laura to tell her so. In his letter, he wrote that he suspected something was bothering her and advised her to take the matter directly to her husband. "There must be something which you don’t tell me and which colours (sic) the whole situation... It is unthinkable that your husband knows everything; so you must tell him; he must take on his shoulders the sorrows and problems which now torment you... Confide all your troubles to your husband. He is the one who should bear them." === === What Laura had not told either her husband or Ibsen was that she was being forced to pay back the money she had borrowed to send her husband to Italy. She did not have the money and was too terrified to tell her husband, hoping instead that the sale of a new novel would allow her to pay back the loan without getting her husband involved. === === When she received Ibsen's letter refusing to support her manuscript and advising her to speak to her husband, Laura forged a check. The forgery was discovered and Laura was forced to tell her husband everything. He was unable to appreciate that Laura had borrowed money to help save him when he was deathly ill or that she had dealt with the financial fall-out alone in an attempt to keep any unnecessary burdens from him. He told her she was a criminal and sought a legal separation to keep her from having any involvement in the rearing of their children. Laura suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to a mental institution. When she was released a month later, she begged her husband to take her back for the children’s sake. He did, but not happily. === === Later that year, Ibsen began writing // A Doll's House //. When it was published and produced in 1879, Laura Kieler was widely recognized as the inspiration for Nora. Unfortunately, this literary tribute only made married life more difficult for her, so she was unable to see the vindication Ibsen offered in his dramatization of her situation. === There are other connections between Nora and Laura, not the least of which is the similarity of their names. Ibsen playfully referred to Laura as his "skylark," a term of endearment Ibsen’s audiences now associate with Torvald Helmer. When Laura came to visit in the midst of financial crisis, Ibsen observed that his little skylark "could no longer sing her happy songs."