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Chapter Twenty-Six
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 and Ki go to the Ministry of Land and Records building in Phnom Penh, feeling self-conscious about their frayed and dirty clothing as they walk across its clean marble floors. After speaking with several officials who look as if they might throw them out, they find a records clerk. They tell him they are searching for the person who owns Stung Meanchey, and gives him Sopeap’s list of renters. The clerk steps out, speaks to an associate, and returns with an identical list, saying that the “sick woman” was here several times to do business. However, the clerk tells Sang Ly that she was not the Rent Collector as Sang Ly believed; Sopeap herself is the landowner.
The revelation that Sopeap is not the Rent Collector, but the landowner herself, yet again confirms that one cannot judge a person based on their appearance, since even one so outwardly shabby as Sopeap turns out to be secretly wealthy and influential. Sopeap’s status as a wealthy person who appears impoverished thus parallels her initially foul and ornery demeanor, which masks a kind, tender, and generous spirit.
Themes
The clerk says that Sopeap just transferred ownership of all the properties to someone named Chenda Lai Sin, although it will be two weeks before the transfer is official. However, one of the properties was not transferred to her, but to another couple. Looking at the man’s map, Sang Ly and Ki Lim recognize that it is Sopeap’s house, and she has gifted it to the two of them.
Sopeap’s gift to Sang Ly and Ki not only erases their rent payment, but also offers a sense of security that they have most likely never known before—both physical, since the home has a locking door, and psychological, because they will never be homeless.
Themes
Sang Ly takes a taxi by herself to see the new landowner—she feels bad about spending the fare until Ki points out that they’ll no longer need to pay rent—at their home near the edge of the city. When she arrives at a gated house, a woman steps out to meet her. Sang Ly introduces herself and states that she is looking for the family of a former housekeeper who worked for a family during the start of the revolution. The woman steps forward and waves her in eagerly, announcing that the housekeeper, the original Sopeap Sin, is her sister, but she has not seen or heard from her since the bloody revolution.
This meeting reveals that Sang Ly’s Sopeap (the teacher) gave not only the gift of literacy to Sang Ly, but also a huge gift to her heroic housekeeper’s entire family. Although in Sopeap’s mind this may have simply been an act of restitution, an attempt to atone for her housekeeper’s death, to Sang Ly and the family, it seems but another great sacrifice. This generosity again suggests that Sopeap, though she may wallow in self-contempt, truly is a hero.
Themes
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The woman introduces herself as Rathana, and tells Sang Ly how their father pushed Sopeap (the housekeeper) to take a job in the city, since their family was very poor. Heartbroken by her disappearance, Sopeap’s father and mother spent years looking for Sopeap once the Khmer Rouge was ousted, but never found any information beyond learning that the house Sopeap worked in was burned to the ground and reduced to rubble. Like thousands of families in those days, Sopeap’s parents never found an answer as to whether or not their daughter was still alive. However, packages of money—no note or identification, just a stack of bills—began arriving each month. Sopeap’s father thought that perhaps they were from his lost daughter, but Rathana doubted it, and after following the courier several times, never saw sign of her sister.
Sang Ly discovers yet another sacrifice that Sopeap (the teacher) made to honor the housekeeper’s sacrifice, by anonymously sending money to her family each month. The fact that the payments were anonymous and remained so for decades suggests that Sopeap is a humble and unsung hero, since she sought no recognition for the sacrifices she made over such a long period of time. Again, such generosity completely defies the initial characterization of Sopeap the Rent Collector, thus arguing that first impressions rarely tell the whole truth about a person, and a dour appearance may conceal a wonderful character.
Themes
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Sang Ly tells Rathana that her sister Sopeap (the housekeeper) died in the revolution, but she has a story to tell about her that she feels their whole family should hear. Rathana promises she will gather the whole family if Sang Ly can return the next morning, and they will hear the story then. As Sang Ly is about to leave, an old woman appears who Sang Ly realizes is Sopeap the housekeeper’s mother, Grandma Sin. Before she leaves, Sang Ly asks Rathana if she ever met the teacher who employed Sopeap. Rathana never did, assuming she was killed with the other intellectuals, but Sang Ly reveals she is alive, and Sang Ly needs to find her as soon as possible.
Sopeap taught San Ly that stories are both important and powerful, able to inspire, inform, and teach. Accordingly, Sang Ly treats the housekeeper’s story as something of great value that should be told properly, honored, and revered. Sang Ly’s retelling of the housekeeper’s noble and heroic story to her own family (which is implied, but not depicted) begins her storytelling “career” and foreshadows the the retelling she will give of the Rent Collector’s life in the book’s final chapter.
Themes
