Mr Maté Jarai is Postgraduate research student within English at the University of Southampton.
Having originally studied Film and English as an undergraduate (2007-2010), I gravitated towards Creative Writing in which I completed a Masters in 2011. Having developed good working relationships with staff at Southampton, I chose to take up a PhD in creative writing in 2012.
My research is focused on the amoral protagonist, looking at novels, film and television. My aim is to produce my own novel centered on an amoral protagonist. My work combines the post-war French literature of Sartre, Camus and Céline and their existential themes with post-modern examples of amorality in fiction, such as the work of Bret Easton Ellis, to examine how, despite his moral flaws, the amoral protagonist can be made compelling and engaging. I ask: how does existentialism fit in with today's world and today's fiction?