What Women Want Is Actually What Men Want Too: Yearning for Connection in Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater

Although Philip Roth typically writes characters who are intent on pursuing lust rather than love, Sabbath's Theater (1995), while sexually explicit, portrays a protagonist who reveals a longing for attachment. Analyzed against other recent novels and Leslie Fiedler's thesis that fictional American men eschew family responsibilities and women, this article indicates that far from celebrating infidelity, the novel suggests that this immature masculine identity brings only isolation and regret.