85 pages • 2 hours read
Camron WrightThe Rent Collector
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 24-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 24 Summary
Nisay and Ki sleep on the bus ride home, and Sang is excited to see Maly looking happy and healthy with an older woman. Although Sang wants to get Maly’s attention, she hesitates, wondering if “the memories she holds of Stung Meanchey” are perhaps “ones she hopes to forget” (204).
Sang then thinks that her encounter with Maly, who is unaware of Sang’s presence, must be like their relationship with the ancestors: “They watch us closely, full of love and concern, sometimes whispering encouragement through a crack, but mostly just satisfied to know that we are happy” (204).
Upon arriving back at the dump, Sang discovers that someone has stolen all their possessions. They go to stay with her mother, and the next morning, the sound of Nisay laughing wakes Sang. She realizes that even though they have nothing, “if Nisay is truly better,” they “have everything” (207). Furthermore, her mother tells her that the other residents of the dump are gathering things to replace the missing items. Sang notes that “friendship is soothing the sting of injury” (208).
Lucky Fat comes to Sang with a notebook from Sopeap. The book contains a note saying that Sopeap had to leave but has left behind a set of lessons for Sang. Sang soon realizes that these lessons are different; they seem to be essays about Sopeap’s life. Sang jumps ahead to the one titled “Epilogue,” despite Sopeap’s admonition to “Never read the ending first!” (211).
Chapter 25 Summary
In the “Epilogue,” Sopeap reveals her story and how she ended up at Stung Meanchey. In 1975, after the Khmer Rouge takes over the country, Soriyan, and many others, are “so glad to finally have the war over” that “nobody seemed to care who had won. We didn’t understand that peace at any price is a fool’s bargain” (212). After being stuck in the house for three days after rocket attacks, Soriyan leaves her husband and infant son at home while she and the housekeeper, Sopeap Sin, go to check on her husband’s sister, Channary. At Channary’s house, they find eggs but cannot locate Soriyan’s sister-in-law. On the way home, the nervous housekeeper accidentally breaks some of the eggs, which are expensive and hard to find due to the war. Soriyan scolds Sopeap Sin and takes the basket, confessing that she has already decided to fire her.
When they return home, six Khmer Rouge soldiers are waiting for them, holding Soriyan’s husband, Samnang, at gunpoint. At this point, Samnang calls to his wife, telling her if they are going to die, “let it be together” (216). However, he does not look at his wife when he says this. Instead, he looks at their “young peasant housekeeper, Sopeap Sin” (216), who quickly realizes that Samnang is trying to save his wife and plays along. The soldiers execute both Samnang and the real Sopeap Sin. Soriyan’s son wakes and cries, and despite her pleas, they kill the child. Soriyan begs them to kill her as well, but they think she is merely an uneducated peasant girl and their job “wasn’t to kill the peasants or farmers, but rather the educated” (219).
Soriyan takes on Sopeap Sin’s name and identity, both out of respect and as penance for what she calls her cowardice in remaining silent before the soldiers. This new Sopeap is sent to a reeducation camp to learn to farm, in fulfillment of the dream of a “perfect Khmer Rouge society,” in which “there would be no need for the educated—no doctors, no lawyers, no mechanics, no engineers, no drivers, no merchants, no students, and certainly no teachers” (220). She witnesses brutal atrocities that end only when the Vietnamese army overthrows the Khmer Rouge in 1979.
After this, Sopeap becomes a homeless drunk, winding up in Stung Meanchey, which she believes is appropriate because it is “a place for old, discarded, and spoiled things to finish out their existence” (220). She ends the lesson by reminding Sang that she must be “careful in [her] choices” because “[c]onsequences, good or bad, will always follow” (221). Sang is devastated and screams, “That is not the lesson. That is not the lesson” (221). Then she asks Ki and some friends to help find Sopeap.
Chapters 24-25 Analysis
In Chapter 24, Sang seems to come to an acceptance of her own spiritual beliefs. She sees Maly through the bus window, and even though she wants to “to chase her down and wrap [her] arms around her and tell her that [she has] been thinking about her, that [they have] all missed her” (204), she hesitates, unsure what consequences that might have for Maly. Sang just watches Maly and “thinks this is how it must be with [the] ancestors. They watch us closely, full of love and concern, sometimes whispering encouragement through a crack, but mostly just satisfied to know we are happy” (204).
When Sang, Ki, and Nisay return to the dump, it seems as if Sang’s newfound acceptance of her life might come undone when she realizes that someone has stolen their possessions. Sang observes that Nisay actually seems better, and this makes her realize what it truly means to be happy and content: “[We] have nothing. And yet, if Nisay is truly better, we have everything” (207). The compassion and goodwill of their friends and neighbors, who have banned together to help replace their possessions, reinforces Sang’s optimistic outlook.
However, Sang is devastated to receive a notebook from Sopeap, whose illness has worsened and who has discreetly left the dump. When Sang reads Sopeap’s real story, she is horrified not only by the terrible tragedies that Sopeap has endured, but that Sopeap has misunderstood their meaning. Sang now knows that nothing is all good or all bad, that all experiences, just like all people, have aspects of both. Sopeap, however, still does not grasp this, so Sang is determined to find her and ensure Sopeap also understands.
