The central theme of the text is the power of story. The novel begins with a fable about Sopeap Sin’s origins and ends with Sang’s revised version of the fable. The Rent Collector incorporates many stories, including those of traditional books like Moby Dick and Sarann, as well as personal narratives, such as Sopeap’s written depiction of how she ended up as the Rent Collector and Bunna Heng’s oral recollection of how he became a healer.

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:

[People] are literature—our lives, our hopes, our desires, our despairs, our passions, our strengths, our weaknesses. Stories express our longing not only to make a difference today but to see what is possible for tomorrow (93).

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. The story brings together the passengers on the bus, who initially regard Nisay’s cries as annoying. By the end of the bus ride, however, hearing Sang’s story transforms these strangers into friends.