Little Rot

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

The Ubiquity of Male Sexual Violence

Content Warning: The novel and this section of the guide contain references to violence, murder, drug use, rape, human trafficking, child abuse, and child sexual abuse.

Little Rot is a novel about how patriarchy creates an environment in which sex becomes an expression of power rather than love or desire, and in which men can commit sexual violence with impunity. In the fictional city of New Lagos, Nigeria, patriarchal norms are so entrenched that men’s sexual transgressions are simply laughed off or ignored, allowing worse crimes to proliferate unchecked. The novel suggests that it is essential to see the ugly, predatory aspects of society and not look away. This simple act of seeing takes courage, but it is the only way to prevent the “rot” of corruption from festering and spreading.

At the start of the novel, Aima reflects on the widespread nature of infidelity in New Lagos. “All married men in the city” have women they “privately fucked” behind their wives’ backs, even pastors like Okinosho and a “good man” like Kalu (19). New Lagos is a city where, if you are a man, “you [can] do whatever” and “no one [will] notice” (19). The gendered nature of infidelity in New Lagos—it is always husbands who cheat on their wives with impunity, never the other way around—suggests the pervasive effects of patriarchy. In fact, many women have come to expect a degree of corruption or misconduct from the men in their lives. The tendency is always to look the other way, to “laugh and shrug” at these transgressions, and “[accept] the futility” of seeking faithful husbands (20). This attitude illustrates the lax approach to morality in the city, creating a sense of inevitability that allows violence and corruption to proliferate unchecked.

Infidelity is just the tip of the iceberg in New Lagos, and passive acceptance of it paves the way for far worse transgressions. Rape, murder, and coercive forms of sex work are commonplace. Because of this culture of impunity, victims of sexual violence have no authority to which they can turn for justice. Instead, they must often fend for themselves—as when Souraya stabs the man who coerced her into oral sex when she was a child. Cathartic acts of vengeance are less common than pragmatic acts of accommodation to an unjust reality. To save Kalu from being killed by the powerful Okinosho, Ola arranges for Kalu to be forced to have sex with the underage sex worker Machi. This arrangement makes Kalu both a victim and a perpetrator of sexual violence at the same time. Though Ola cannot save Machi from this sexual predation, she negotiates such a high price for the act that Machi will be able to retire from sex work permanently. Ola’s ability to demand the highest prices for her own sex work and that of others is a form of agency. She cannot change the culture of sexual violence around her, but she can turn her commodification to her advantage and use it as a source of power.

When Kalu tries to help Machi, Ahmed points out that the suffering he is shocked by is ordinary, reminding him “about the other ones,” the sex workers he doesn’t “see because [his] windows are tinted when [his] car drives past them” (48). This reminder suggests that ignorance and invisibility are key factors in perpetuating violence, inequality, and corruption. When characters are confronted head-on with injustices, they are compelled to act. However, no one speaks up when these same actions occur out of sight.

The Fight to Maintain Moral Integrity

Amid the violence and corruption of New Lagos, characters must constantly fight against the threat of sliding into corruption. The corruption in the city is often likened to “rot,” spreading slowly and consuming characters before they know what is happening. All the characters are affected by this rot, and as they slip into the darkness, they often make a last attempt to assert their morality. When directly confronted by injustices, characters feel compelled to act. However, in the context of all the moral transgressions that go unchecked, these efforts to do “the right thing” become hypocritical and self-serving (168). They allow the characters to claim a sense of moral superiority while ignoring their own complicity in a corrupt and violent system.

The two clearest examples of this attempt to gloss over one’s own transgressions are Kalu’s attempt to help Machi and Ahmed’s rescue of Souraya. Kalu accuses Ahmed of being a sex trafficker and “selling a child” (46). However, Ahmed reminds Kalu that he is also Ahmed’s “client,” coming to his parties to “fuck [his] women” just like the other men (48). On the way home, Kalu shuts his eyes to avoid seeing “the women who walked the night” (50) and thinks of all the times he cheated on Aima, wondering, “Is this not Nigeria and was he not a man just like those men in the locked room?” (50). At the end of the book, Okinosho forces Kalu to have sex with the same underage sex worker he rescues in this scene, thus erasing the moral distinction Kalu has tried to uphold between himself and men like Okinosho.

Ahmed has a similar experience when he rescues Souraya from a violent client and then kills the man in retribution. He claims that the man “deserved to die,” but Souraya reminds him that “[m]en like that are [his] clients,” and they abuse and murder women “all the time” while Ahmed does nothing. (168). Ahmed punishes this man not because his actions are wrong, but because he has harmed someone Ahmed personally cares for. In both of these examples, the characters are confronted with an act of violence or injustice that they cannot ignore, either for the extremity of the situation or because of an emotional investment. Their efforts to act with moral integrity come up empty because their corruption is already too deep. By the end of the novel, Kalu looks back on his attempt to help Machi and recognizes that “[h]e’d saved no one, certainly not himself” (267). In fact, his effort to help leads to his own “damnation.”

These negative consequences of a supposedly well-intentioned action suggest that morality doesn’t exist in isolation. Doing one good thing doesn’t lead to redemption, because the characters continue to exist in a system of violence and injustice. Without addressing the root of these issues and their own complicity, they only manage to perpetuate this corruption.

The Influence of Circumstance on Individual Actions and Identity

In Little Rot, characters move through a number of different “worlds,” environments and spaces that have different rules, norms, and expectations. Inhabiting these different worlds often causes characters to behave differently, alter their moral compass, and even seem to become completely different people. As characters move through various environments, their understandings of morality and of their own identity undergo subtle shifts with profound consequences.

Kalu and Aima’s relationship transforms as they return to Nigeria from the United States. In the US, Aima began to change, letting go of her devout Christianity when she fell in love with Kalu. However, back in Nigeria, perhaps in a subconscious attempt to keep the city’s corruption at bay, she “remembered who she was” (82) and re-embraced her faith. To Kalu, she seems like a different person, speaking “as if another woman’s mouth had eaten hers” (25). This causes their relationship to begin to fall apart. Another couple whose relationship is affected by their environment is Souraya and Ahmed. In “small worlds” like their Johannesburg hotel room and the privacy of Ahmed’s car, they have intimacy and closeness, but when the “real-world version” of themselves begins to intrude, that openness and understanding quickly evaporates.

Characters use these different “worlds” to explore different aspects of themselves and try on new identities. However, “ricocheting” through these different worlds often creates tension and confusion regarding what is real and who someone really is. After their breakup, Aima tries entering another “world,” that of Ijendu and the other “bad gehls.” In that world, she feels as if she has become yet another person and has sex with her best friend, something she never would have done in another situation. The next morning, she feels devastated and guilty, feeling that she has behaved like “someone with no decency” (81), and part of her worries that she is really that “type of girl” (81). Similarly, Ahmed’s parties are worlds where “you could believe you were truly somewhere else, that the body rippling around you wasn’t real, that none of this really counted” (36). Identities are hidden, and his guests can become anyone they want to, try out any fantasy they want. However, the question of how much is real remains. Ahmed has created a “set up” where men can have sex with “a girl who looks like a child” (41), but Machi is 17 years old at most, possibly younger, meaning that there is nothing illusory about the situation. The men are essentially having sex with a child, not merely fulfilling a fantasy.

This blurry line between fantasy and reality makes it easy to do something under the guise of it being not real and, therefore, morally permissible. However, without noticing, characters often cross from these imagined worlds back into the real one, yet their behavior doesn’t change. Like Kalu, by the end of the novel, they risk becoming truly corrupted.