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The Rent Collector, by Camron Wright
The Rent Collector Summary & Study Guide includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis, quotes, character descriptions, themes, and more. Based on true events. Sang Ly lives at Cambodia’s city dump and is grateful she can help earn a living for her family by sifting through the trash for.
The Rent Collector Themes | LitCharts
The central theme of the text is the power of story. Furthermore, the novel explores how story influences human behavior and decision making, and how story can create connections and foster empathy and compassion. Sopeap argues this latter point:. This is evident on a smaller scale when Sang reads a story aloud to Nisay to try to comfort him on the bus ride to her home province. Story similarly weaves tighter connections among the inhabitants of the dump, including the Rent Collector, Sopeap Sin.
Although the Stung Meanchey community evidently likes Sang and Ki from the beginning, it is story that brings their friends and neighbors closer together.
Sang transforms the bitter, drunken woman at the beginning of the novel to a beautiful, self-sacrificing savior who came to help the residents of Stung Meanchey. With this revised story, Sang hopes that the community will remember and honor her beloved teacher. One of the main themes of the story is the ways in which the past informs the present and future. Many past events haunt her, particularly the deaths of her son and husband, as well as the death of the real Sopeap Sin , who sacrificed herself for Soriyan.
This trauma drove Sopeap to obliterate her painful memories with alcohol. However, her past as a teacher is also what allows her to help Sang and others and is what ultimately redeems her. Without this history, humans are destined to repeat the same mistakes. However, since people of every culture often consume stories written in the past, this past then affects the present and the future. Wright weaves the importance of education throughout the text. This is particularly evident when set in contrast to the events of the Khmer Rouge revolution, in which the regime attempted to wipe out the educated and create an ideal community of simple farmers.
As a former literature professor, Sopeap is able to teach Sang to read and to understand literature. The Rent Collector argues that education, particularly in terms of literature, has the power to create community, not to divide. Even Sopeap worries that if Sang becomes literate, she might become discontented with her life and disconnect from her family. Throughout the text, the characters encounter both good and evil, and they must decide how to respond to such events.
However, The Rent Collector emphasizes that no person or situation is either just one or the other. Sang is confused by the fact that Captain Ahab is not purely evil, and Moby Dick is not purely good. Furthermore, he was preparing to sell his younger sister into child prostitution. However, he was only a child himself, and his death horrifies Sang and Ki, along with the other dump residents. However, many of the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge were children themselves, brainwashed by those in charge.
The military often forced boys and girls as young as 12 and 13 to join, and the Khmer Rouge are well known for exploiting children in this way. This background makes it harder for Cambodians to judge even these soldiers as purely evil. The guide themes, chapter outlines and character summaries are more detailed than other sites.
The information is chapter specific and so it’s easy to target certain things. The Rent Collector Camron Wright. Access Full Guide Download Save. Featured Collections. Chapters Character Analysis. Important Quotes. Essay Topics. The Rent Collector Themes. The Power of Story The central theme of the text is the power of story. Unlock this Study Guide! Join SuperSummary to gain instant access to all 60 pages of this Study Guide and thousands of other learning resources.
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