The Rent Collector: Chapter Fifteen Summary & Analysis

Although most of Sopeap’s books do not contain pictures, she gives Sang Ly a Cambodian book with an illustrated cover called Sarann, and explains that it comes from a particular group of stories. Sopeap proceeds to read the entire story.

In Sarann, many centuries before, the titular Sarann is the only child of a royal Cambodian family. Sarann and her family are happy, but right after she turns 14, a fever sweeps through the land, killing her mother and leaving her father frail and weak-minded. Her father marries a widow (meaning Sarann has a new stepmother and stepsister) before passing away himself shortly after. Sarann’s stepmother is obsessed with becoming beautiful and resents Sarann’s natural beauty, so she gives her the dirtiest and most difficult chores to do.

Years pass. A sorcerer tells the stepmother about a magic flower in the dangerous jungle that will bring one’s beauty to the surface and make them radiant. Her stepmother orders Sarann to find it or she will burn Sarann’s treasured silken dress that her mother gave her, reasoning that either Sarann will be killed or she will return with the flower, which is an optimal solution either way. Sarann ventures into the dark jungle, her skin becoming mottled and torn by thorns. Finally, she finds the magic flowers, which she fastens into a wreath and wears on her head so her hands will be free to make her way back to civilization.

Sarann meets a handsome young man in the forest who helps her find her way back, but when she reaches her stepmother’s house, she discovers that the cruel woman already burned the silk dress. Sarann is so distressed that she runs back to the jungle where she meets the Goddess of Mercy, who tells her that although her last gift from her mother is gone, she still has the memories of her mother in her heart. Sarann awakes, realizing that she fell asleep at the jungle’s edge, and discovers that she is magically dressed in an even more beautiful silk dress. Hearing activity nearby, Sarann follows the sounds until she happens upon an ongoing festival, where she discovers that the handsome young man she met is indeed a prince—the king’s son.

The prince introduces Sarann to the king, but as she is speaking with them, her stepmother sneaks up behind her and steals the magical flower wreath, placing it upon her own head instead. However, the flowers draw out the true essence of a person, but not necessarily their beauty as the sorcerer had said, and the stepmother turns into a leech and falls into the river. Sarann meanwhile becomes the new princess, ending the story.

Sang Ly states that she enjoyed the story, though cannot specifically point out why, other than that it made her feel happy. Sopeap explains that this same character has existed in many different forms in different cultures over thousands of years: Ye Xian in China, Cinderella in America, Tattercoats in England, and so on. In Sopeap’s mind, the story is so universal because at their core, all human beings are drawn to hope.

Sopeap calls this the “problem” of hope, the mystery as to where it comes from and why it seems so universal amongst human beings. She recounts that many of her fellow professors tried to understand the nature of hope, but could never determine why it is so inherent to humanity. This seems to be the case with other motifs in stories as well—they so adequately describe a basic human emotion that they appear all over the world and in all sorts of cultures. However, Sopeap is also careful not to hope too much, reminding Sang Ly that although everybody wants to believe they are Sarann, life does not always work out so nicely. But dwelling on this too much can lead to cynicism, of which Sopeap implies she herself is guilty.