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Chapter One
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
Poor families eke out a living in Stung Meanchey by picking through trash, searching for recyclable materials to sell to a scrap collector. Most of them are too worried about immediate problems to hope or plan for the future. To shield themselves from the sun, pickers often build temporary lean-tos to rest under in the afternoon, but government bulldozers always flatten them by the next day, along with anyone foolish enough to be out in the dump after dark.
The trash-pickers temporary lean-tos parallel the existence of hope in Stung Meanchey: although a poor person may prop up some hope to give themselves some brief psychological relief from the day’s drudgery, such hope is always flattened, crushed, unable to exist for long on its own, unprotected or supported.
Themes
As Sang Ly goes to bring Ki’s lunch to him, she runs into Lucky Fat, a chubby young orphan boy whose parents abandoned him at the dump. Despite having to survive alone, Lucky Fat is always cheerful and good-humored, even making a practice of collecting Buddha figurines when the other villagers remark that he looks like the plump Buddha. While Sang Ly is speaking with Lucky Fat, Ki arrives, carrying his sack filled with heavy metal pipes, meaning that it has been a good and profitable day collecting scrap. Ki gives the money he has earned so far, along with a children’s book he found amongst the rubbish, to Sang Ly, and tells her to go home and buy good food for the evening. In light of this, Sang Ly remembers Grandfather’s prediction of a lucky day.
This passage introduces Lucky Fat as a character, immediately establishing him as a cheery, good-natured young boy despite his struggles. In this way, Lucky Fat is the best representation of how humor can make an individual resilient even amidst great hardship. Living as a child in Stung Meanchey is hard enough, but even more difficult without parents to protect and provide. Lucky Fat’s use of humor to remain high-spirited suggests that it is a powerful tool for maintaining one’s spirit and resilience.
Themes
Sang Ly walks home, imagining how she will triumphantly and pridefully pay off Sopeap this evening. In their hut, she holds Nisay on her lap and flips through the illustrated book that Ki found, making up a story as she goes since she cannot read the words. As they are looking at the pictures together, Sang Ly hears a shuffling outside and assumes it is Sopeap, drunk, back for the rest of her rent. Instead, Sang Ly finds Ki lying on the ground with blood running from his head. She instinctively knows that one of the dump’s gangs beat and robbed him.
Sang Ly’s interest in the book foreshadows the the importance literature will take on for the rest of her life. The contrast of Ki’s brief good fortune during his workday to this stroke of ill luck illustrates how poverty can seem to be an inescapable situation, since just as one gets a break from one life-threatening problem (hunger and homelessness) another rears its head (gang violence).
Themes
By the next morning, Ki’s bleeding still has not stopped, and he is growing pale and weak. Sang Ly convinces him to take what money they have left to go see a doctor, even though that cost will leave them without enough money to pay the Rent Collector. Sopeap arrives, and discovering that they still have no money, tells Sang Ly that she is evicting them; they must be gone by morning. Just as Sang Ly is protesting, however, Sopeap spies the children’s book and falls silent. She picks the book up and flips through it, beginning to weep and moan. Sopeap rises to leave, and Sang Ly tells her to keep the book, since it obviously means a lot to her. As Sopeap wanders away in silence, Sang Ly realizes that the woman must know how to read.
The power of one children’s book to silence Sopeap’s fury suggests that literature wields some sort of power to disarm even the most furious or drunken individual. Although it is yet unclear what this power is or how it will play out, literature at this point demonstrates more power to pacify Sopeap than any of Sang Ly’s arguments or pleas for sympathy. Sang Ly’s surprise that Sopeap knows how to read suggests that literacy is a rare thing in Stung Meanchey.
Themes
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Ki returns late in the evening with a bandage around his head, disoriented from painkillers. A clinic treated him for free, so Ki used the money he’d brought with him to buy a knife for protection against the gangs, which he’s strapped to his ankle. The next morning, the painkillers have worn off, but Ki is in no shape to work. Sang Ly leaves to pick trash instead, so that they can still afford a little rice to eat. Although it is more profitable to work near the garbage trucks and pick what comes off of them, Sang Ly opt to work out in the open swathes of rubbish. It is less profitable, but there is less danger of being crushed by machinery, and she can let her mind wander while she works. As she does so, tired of waiting for Grandfather’s luck, she devises a plan, but she imagines everyone in the village will think she is crazy for it.
Although the practical purpose of the knife is a tool and a weapon, it functions as a minor symbol for power. Ki’s beating makes him feel weak and powerless, and the weapon’s presence suddenly gives him a sense of power and capability. This will tie in later to Sang Ly and Ki’s changing perception of heroism. The fact that Ki chose to buy this sense of power for himself rather than food for his family suggests that his own feeling of powerlessness preoccupies him from other concerns. Personal safety, then, is paramount over even basic necessities like food in Stung Meanchey. Sang Ly’s decision to launch a crazy plan rather than wait around for Grandfather’s suggests that, even before Sopeap begins to teach her, Sang Ly senses that taking action is the most important step in fostering hope.
Themes
