The forms of immorality the man witnesses in The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born link to the greed and corruption that seem to happen at all levels of Ghanaian society, including the working-class level. In the first scene, the man witnesses the unscrupulous behavior of the bus driver. The conductor makes money by not giving passengers correct change. The driver’s avarice is reinforced when the man sees him smelling the cedi and the coins. The former carries the scent of “marvelous rottenness”—a description that speaks to the depravity of the man’s environment.

The immorality continues in chapter 2. Here, the man encounters a messenger who has won the lottery. To acquire the money, the messenger admits that he will likely have to give a lottery official some of his winnings. Now, the man is witnessing bureaucratic forms of immorality.

In chapter 3, the man encounters immorality on a business level. As a railway clerk, the man manages the trains. A timber contractor, Amankwa, wants to ensure that his timber ends up on a train and will be sent to its proper destination. He offers the man a bribe to make this happen. The man refuses the bribe.

However, the man’s rejection of the bribe doesn’t free him from immorality. The man contemplates his abstention and wonders how others would react to his upright behavior. He thinks about how everyone says that there’s “something unspeakably dishonest about a man who refused to take and to give what everyone around was busy taking and giving.” In this light, a form of immorality is, paradoxically, produced by morality and nonconformity.

To return to more clear-cut forms of immorality witnessed by the man, consider how immorality manifests in the domestic sphere.