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Chapter Eighteen
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Rent Collector, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Power of Literature
Appearances, Judgment, and Hidden Character
Heroism and Self-Sacrifice
Hope and Action
Humor and Resilience
Summary
Analysis
Sang Ly washes clothes in a bucket behind their hut—they wear Western clothing because they can get rejected garments from the nearby manufacturing factories for mere pennies. While washing the clothes, Sang Ly tries to explain to Ki about metaphors in literature, trying to angle the argument to convince him to help do laundry. However, Ki doesn’t understand and the conversation turns to flirting until they have bargained Ki’s help with laundry and bathing Nisay that afternoon in exchange for the couple having sex that evening. Sang Ly reflects to herself, “Metaphors in literature can be a very confusing thing.”
This scene serves to depict Ki and Sang Ly as both playful and affectionate in spite of their various hardships and poverty. Although it would be easy for either of them to grow disenchanted by their hardships, their good humor helps them to remain resilient and hopeful, demonstrating humor’s ability to lift one’s spirits and help them to endure difficult situations.
Themes
Sang Ly asks Sopeap if she will bring the children’s book that Ki found, the one that meant so much to Sopeap. Sopeap says that it is “not a typical children’s book” and she will only allow it if Nisay sits in Sang Ly’s lap while she reads it. Sang Ly states that if that is the case, she wants Sopeap to be there as well, which Sopeap eventually relents to, and agrees to bring the book in the evening. True to her word, Sopeap brings the book, and Ki is eager for Sang Ly to begin. The book is titled Love Forever and describes a mother’s love her for her child. When Sang Ly finishes, she turns to thank Sopeap, but “Sopeap is gone.”
Ki’s eagerness to hear his wife read the story to Nisay suggests that his initial hesitation towards Sang Ly learning to read is falling away, especially when he can see the benefit a literature parent confers to Nisay. Meanwhile, Sopeap’s disappearance while Sang Ly reads the story shows that the story is painful for her to hear, suggesting that it is more than simply a children’s book to her.
Themes
The next morning, Sopeap visits to tell Sang Ly she is ill and asks to postpone the day’s lesson. Sang Ly tries to return the book, but Sopeap tells her it is a gift to Nisay, and shares that a friend of hers wrote it during the years that Sopeap taught at the university. However, the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime invaded Phnom Penh before it could be published. The regime ransacked the university, burned all its books, and killed all who had written them. Sopeap assumed the books were all lost on that day, until she saw the one in Sang Ly’s home. Sopeap lastly reveals that her friend, the author, was childless, but wrote the book about Sopeap and her son.
Once again, Sopeap’s generous gift of the book, which obviously means a great deal to her, defies her initial characterization and the perception many of the villagers have of her, suggesting both that she is continuing to change, and that one cannot accurately judge a person by their outward demeanor. Sopeap’s revelation that she was once a mother furthers this suggestion, and hints at the pain she so often references as the cause of her drinking.
Themes
Later that evening, Sang Ly’s cousin Narin visits the house to tell her that one of her friend’s sisters works in the local hospital, and is currently treating Sopeap. Sopeap is ill with cancer, and it seems as if she will die very soon.
Sopeap’s earlier statement that she planned to leave Stung Meanchey soon reveals itself as a metaphor for passing from one life to the next. Her impending death adds a sense of urgency to the story.
Themes
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