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 finds an instructional pamphlet called Sy Mao’s Advice for Growing Rice. Someone has handwritten “and children” alongside the pamphlet’s title. Sang Ly is delighted as to how two simple words can change the instruction’s meaning from agricultural advice to child-rearing wisdom, and she shares it with Lena, who also marvels at it. When Sang Ly shows Sopeap her discovery, Sopeap tells her that words are both more valuable than gold and powerful enough to start and end wars, but one should be careful with them since they can alternately pull one up or hold them down.
The agricultural pamphlet’s transformation into child-rearing wisdom with the simple addition of two words to the title yet again suggests that, through the power of words and metaphors, nearly anything can become literature, so long as it conveys some type of wisdom, lesson, or meaningful idea. Sopeap’s warning that words can help or harm foreshadows the source of her own guilt, which stems in part from her failure to speak at a critical moment.
Themes
That evening, Sang Ly tells Ki that Sopeap spoke about him during their lesson that day. Ki is unhappy, assuming it was somehow critical, but Sang Ly assures him that she affirmed his desire to fight back against the gangs. However, Sang Ly makes Ki promise not to “be Captain Ahab,” since Ahab perishes for the sake of his revenge.
Sang Ly’s ability to see the risks of Ki’s desire for revenge through Captain Ahab, and to warn him against it, again demonstrates the power of literature to convey lessons that universally apply to people’s everyday lives and struggles.
Themes
