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Character analysis

Ajax (Albert Jacks)

in Sula by Toni Morrison

Ajax (Albert Jacks) is a minor but thematically significant character in Toni Morrison's Sula. He is introduced early on as one of the young men who mock Nel and Sula with sexually charged remarks during their walk home, immediately marking him as bold, irreverent, and untamed. His role becomes crucial in the latter half of the novel when Sula returns to the Bottom after a decade away, and the two embark on a passionate affair. Ajax stands out among the men in Sula's life because he treats her as an intellectual equal, bringing her bottles of milk and blueing as signs of genuine care rather than possessiveness. He is devoted to his conjure-woman mother and has a fascination with airplanes—two obsessions that reflect his yearning for freedom and the extraordinary, rather than adherence to societal norms.

The affair unravels when Sula begins to show the domestic instincts she has always rejected. As she organizes his medicine cabinet and envisions a future with him, Ajax senses the change and leaves without a word. His departure highlights the novel's sharpest irony: Sula, who has resisted everyone else's attempts to claim her, loses the one man who could have matched her precisely because she briefly gives in to that same desire for connection. After he leaves, Sula realizes she never even knew his real name—Albert Jacks—a detail Morrison emphasizes to illustrate how completely Sula's fantasy had overshadowed the real person. Ajax thus serves as a reflection of Sula's contradictions and reinforces Morrison's message that true freedom, even between kindred spirits, is fragile and self-sabotaging.

About this character

Form
Novel
Author
Toni Morrison
First published
1973

The person01–03

01·Who they are

Who is Ajax (Albert Jacks)?

Ajax, whose given name is Albert Jacks, remains unknown to Sula until after he is gone. He appears as a supporting character in Toni Morrison's Sula, occupying a significant thematic space. Ajax first appears in the chapter "1922," lounging with a group of young men who greet Nel and Sula with provocative sexual banter during their walk home. Morrison introduces Ajax with care; he is not merely crude but theatrical in his boldness, distinguishing himself from the beginning as someone who plays by different rules. Two defining obsessions shape his inner life: his devotion to his conjure-woman mother and his fixation on airplanes. Together these signal a man drawn toward the extraordinary and the untethered, steering away from the domestic rhythms that govern most of the Bottom. He exists, by temperament and choice, at the edge of the community's expectations.

02·Arc & motivation

What is Ajax (Albert Jacks)'s arc and motivation?

Ajax does not undergo a traditional arc but rather passes through the novel like weather — vivid and transformative, then simply absent. His motivation is consistently singular: the preservation of his own freedom. His conjure-woman mother represents a realm of power outside conventional social structures, and his dreams of airplanes signify escape as aspiration rather than failure. When Sula returns to the Bottom after a decade away, Ajax is drawn to her because she appears to share that philosophy. He brings her milk and blueing — gifts that recognize her as a full person with her own desires and aesthetics — rather than the flattened devotion offered by other men. His departure in the chapter "1941" is not impulsive cruelty; it is the logical conclusion of the only principle he has ever followed. The moment he senses Sula reaching for permanence, the terms of their relationship have changed, prompting him to act accordingly.

03·Key moments

What are Ajax (Albert Jacks)'s key moments?

  • The sidewalk taunting ("1922"): Ajax's first appearance establishes his refusal to perform conventional deference. His sexual teasing of Nel and Sula is unsettling while also curiously direct, treating them as worth engaging rather than ignoring — foreshadowing the unusual equality he will later extend to Sula.
  • The affair's height: Ajax brings thoughtful offerings without expecting gratitude. Morrison emphasizes the intellectual parity between them; they talk, and he listens. This depicts what genuine erotic freedom might look like between two people.
  • The medicine cabinet scene: When Sula straightens Ajax's medicine cabinet — a small, almost unconscious gesture of domesticity — Morrison marks the beginning of the end. Sula begins imagining a future; Ajax starts envisioning an exit.
  • His disappearance and the name: Ajax leaves without confrontation. What destroys Sula is not grief but the discovery of his driver's license: Albert Jacks. She has been in love with a construct of her own imagination. The name, two syllables she never bothered to learn, crystallizes the novel's most painful irony.

The cast04–05

04·Relationships

What are Ajax (Albert Jacks)'s most important relationships?

Ajax's relationship with Sula stands as the novel's most intellectually charged pairing, a rare meeting of equals that collapses under the weight of Sula's momentary surrender to possessiveness — an instinct she has spent her life resisting. His dynamic with Jude Greene serves as a structural contrast: Jude seeks a woman to anchor his identity, while Ajax actively dismantles any anchor offered to him. Morrison uses this contrast to explore the costs of conventional Black masculinity rather than simply celebrate Ajax's freedom. The Shadrack parallel is quieter but equally pointed — both men exist outside the Bottom's norms, one through ritualized madness and the other through deliberate rootlessness, together framing the novel's sustained meditation on belonging. Ajax's earlier taunting of Nel reminds readers that his freedom is not without edge; it can wound, even unintentionally. His relationship with Hannah Peace — the ease with which he navigates her undemanding erotic world — suggests that the Peace household's philosophy of unencumbered desire shaped the conditions that enabled the Sula affair.

05·Connected characters

How is Ajax (Albert Jacks) connected to the other characters?

Sula Peace

Ajax's lover and the novel's central consciousness in their shared scenes. Their affair is the most intellectually and erotically charged relationship in the book, but it collapses when Sula begins to possess him; his vanishing forces her to confront the gap between the man she imagined and the stranger whose real name she never knew.

Nel Wright

One of the girls Ajax and his friends taunt with sexual banter early in the novel. Nel and Ajax never share a meaningful scene, but his harassment of her in youth contrasts with the deeper, more equal dynamic he later develops with Sula.

Shadrack

A parallel figure of radical social nonconformity in the Bottom. Neither interacts directly with the other, but both men exist outside the community's norms—Shadrack through ritualized madness, Ajax through deliberate rootlessness—framing the novel's meditation on freedom and belonging.

Jude Greene

A foil to Ajax. Where Jude seeks a wife to complete and stabilize his identity, Ajax actively resists domestic attachment. The contrast highlights Morrison's critique of conventional Black masculinity and the costs it imposes on the women around it.

Hannah Peace

Ajax is among the men drawn into the orbit of the Peace women's unconventional sexuality. Hannah's easy, undemanding relationships with men prefigure the kind of freedom Ajax himself prizes, suggesting a generational continuity in the Peace household's erotic philosophy.

The evidence06

06·Key quotes

What are Ajax (Albert Jacks)’s most famous quotes?

“Sula was wrong. Hell ain't things lasting forever. Hell is change.”

Ajax (Albert Jacks) · to Sula Peace · 1939

Why it matters

This line is spoken by Ajax (Albert Jacks) in Toni Morrison's Sula (1973) as he reflects on his philosophy during his relationship with Sula Peace. Ajax, a free spirit who avoids attachment and domestic life, offers a viewpoint that directly opposes Sula's earlier claim that hell is stasis—where things last forever. Instead, Ajax shares his hard-earned insight: hell is really about change. This clash of ideas is a key theme in the novel. Sula embraces change, reinvention, and the rejection of fixed identities, seeing permanence as a form of torment. In contrast, Ajax argues that instability and change bring their own suffering. Their exchange highlights Morrison's examination of how people find meaning and cope with pain differently, influenced by their experiences of race, gender, and freedom. It also hints at Ajax's eventual departure; he leaves because Sula starts to exhibit signs of wanting to possess and domesticate him, a shift he cannot accept. The quote captures one of the novel's central tensions: the conflicting implications of permanence versus impermanence in Black life and love.

Study07–08

07·Questions

Questions readers ask about Ajax (Albert Jacks)

What is Ajax's real name in Sula?

Ajax's real name is Albert Jacks. Morrison withholds this detail until after he has left Sula, who discovers it on his driver's license. The revelation is devastating: Sula realizes she never knew the actual person behind the nickname, implicating her in the same kind of objectification she has always refused to accept from others.

Why does Ajax leave Sula?

Ajax leaves because he senses Sula reaching for permanence and possession — the very things his entire life has been organized around avoiding. When Sula straightens his medicine cabinet and begins imagining a shared future, the terms of their relationship shift. Ajax's departure is not cruelty but consistency: preserving his freedom is the one principle he has never abandoned, even for a woman who seemed to share it.

What is Ajax's most famous line in Sula?

Ajax's most quoted line is "Hell ain't things lasting forever. Hell is change" (1939). The line captures his philosophy precisely — he does not fear impermanence the way others do. Ironically, it is Sula's resistance to change, her sudden desire for a stable future with Ajax, that triggers the one change neither of them can survive: his disappearance.

How does Ajax treat Sula differently from the other men in her life?

Ajax treats Sula as an intellectual equal rather than an object to be claimed or saved. He brings her bottles of milk and blueing as signs of genuine attention to her specific desires, listens to her, and expects nothing in the way of domestic devotion. Morrison contrasts this with men like Jude, who seek a partner to anchor their own identity rather than recognize a woman's autonomous inner life.

What are Ajax's two defining obsessions, and what do they mean?

Ajax is devoted to his conjure-woman mother and fascinated by airplanes. Together these obsessions signal a man drawn to the extraordinary and the untethered. His mother represents power outside conventional social structures; his fixation on flight represents escape as aspiration. Both orient him away from the domestic rhythms of the Bottom and toward a life lived at the edge of the community's expectations.

How does Ajax's relationship with Nel Wright compare to his relationship with Sula?

Ajax and Nel never share a meaningful scene beyond his early sexual taunting of her during her walk home with Sula in "1922." That harassment, while bold, treats Nel as a target rather than an equal. His later relationship with Sula is the opposite — a rare erotic and intellectual partnership built on mutual recognition, making the contrast a measure of how unusual the Sula affair truly is.

Is Ajax a villain in Sula?

Ajax is not a villain — Morrison presents him as a figure of genuine freedom who is neither romanticized nor condemned. His early taunting of Nel shows his freedom carries an edge that can wound. His departure from Sula, though devastating to her, is the logical outcome of the only principle he has ever followed. Morrison uses him to explore how the ideology of absolute personal freedom can foreclose authentic intimacy, even between kindred spirits.

How does Ajax function as a foil to Jude Greene?

Jude seeks a wife to complete and stabilize his identity, using marriage as a prop for his sense of self. Ajax actively dismantles every anchor offered to him, fleeing the moment domesticity appears. Morrison uses this contrast to interrogate competing models of Black masculinity in the Bottom, showing that both ultimately impose costs on the women around them — Nel through Jude's infidelity, Sula through Ajax's disappearance.

08·Essay angles

Use this in your essay

Tool · Essay angles

  • Freedom as self-destruction: Argue that Ajax does not illustrate liberated masculinity but reveals how the ideology of absolute personal freedom forecloses authentic intimacy

    even between two people who genuinely mirror each other.

  • The name as identity: Analyze Morrison's choice to withhold Ajax's real name until after his departure. How does *Albert Jacks* implicate Sula in the same objectifying behavior she resists from others?

  • Ajax and the conjure-woman's son: Examine how Ajax's devotion to his mother serves as the novel's sole model of sustained male loyalty

    and what it reveals about this loyalty being reserved for magic and maternal rather than romantic partnership.

  • Foil masculinities: Compare Ajax and Jude as competing models of Black manhood in Morrison's Bottom, assessing what each costs the women who love them.

  • The airplane motif: Interpret Ajax's fixation on flight as a sustained metaphor for the novel's broader tension between aspiration and rootedness

    considering whether Morrison presents his yearning for the sky as admirable, tragic, or both.

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