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.

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.

• 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.

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.