SOURCE: "Casanova or Schlemiel? The Don Juan Archetype in I. B. Singer's Fiction," in Yiddish, Vol. 6, Nos. 2-3, Summer-Fall, 1985, pp. 55-71.

In the following essay, Pladott examines the role of the amorous male protagonist as a central figure in Singer's fiction. According to Pladott, these recurring characters underscore man's struggle to reconcile individual desires and universal meaning.

The popularity of I. B. Singer's fiction in recent years does not mitigate the fact that he suffers the same fate as other complex and fecund writers: he gives critics grounds for interpretations or points of emphasis that are divergent to the point of being contrary. Is he a parochial writer, speaking directly to insular Jewish concerns and dilemmas, or a moral fabulist of the stature of Hawthorne and Faulkner, touching the core of universal predicaments? Is he a humorist, a realist, a mythmaker, a metaphysical writer, a chronicler of Jewish...