Madox Character Analysis in The English Patient

The English patient’s friend and part of his desert exploration team. Madox is an Englishman, and like the English patient, he carries a book—Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina—through the desert. Madox uses Tolstoy’s book to try to explain Geoffrey Clifton’s connection to the British government, which underscores Ondaatje’s overarching argument that literature offers a way to understand and shape the world. As World War II begins, Madox leaves the desert and returns to England, where he commits suicide with his revolver in the middle of a church during a sermon that supports the war. According to the English patient, Madox “died because of nations.” Madox thought the church had “lost its holiness” in its support of the war, so “he committed what he believed was a holy act.” Madox’s final act is one of protest against what he considers to be a misuse of religion, which, to many characters in The English Patient, has “lost its holiness” in the violence of the war. The character of Madox is based on Patrick Clayton, a real-life British surveyor and soldier who mapped large areas of the North African desert in the early 1930s.

Madox Quotes in The English Patient

The The English Patient quotes below are all either spoken by Madox or refer to Madox. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

By 1932, Bagnold was finished and Madox and the rest of us were everywhere. Looking for the lost army of Cambyses. Looking for Zerzura. 1932 and 1933 and 1934. Not seeing each other for months. Just the Bedouin and us, crisscrossing the Forty Days Road. There were rivers of desert tribes, the most beautiful humans I’ve met in my life. We were German, English, Hungarian, African— all of us insignificant to them. Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations. We are deformed by nation-states. Madox died because of nations.

Related Characters: The English Patient/László Almásy (speaker), Madox

Related Symbols: The Desert

Page Number and Citation: 138

Explanation and Analysis:

Madox Quotes in The English Patient

The The English Patient quotes below are all either spoken by Madox or refer to Madox. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

By 1932, Bagnold was finished and Madox and the rest of us were everywhere. Looking for the lost army of Cambyses. Looking for Zerzura. 1932 and 1933 and 1934. Not seeing each other for months. Just the Bedouin and us, crisscrossing the Forty Days Road. There were rivers of desert tribes, the most beautiful humans I’ve met in my life. We were German, English, Hungarian, African— all of us insignificant to them. Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations. We are deformed by nation-states. Madox died because of nations.

Related Characters: The English Patient/László Almásy (speaker), Madox

Related Symbols: The Desert

Page Number and Citation: 138

Explanation and Analysis:

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Madox Character Analysis

Madox Quotes in The English Patient

Madox Quotes in The English Patient

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