Brent has a Ph.D. in American Culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses images of the human body in Hendel's story.

Through the recurring motif of the human body, particularly the hands and head, Hendel explores the themes of oppression and self-empowerment in her novella Small Change. In this story, hands come to represent instruments of power, whether used in acts of oppression or of defiance against oppression. Similarly, a recurring motif of decapitated heads represents the forces of terror and violence that characterize oppression. Throughout the story, Rutchen, the main character, struggles against oppression in the form of a domineering father in Israel and the widespread anti-Semitism she encounters in Europe. By the end of the story, Rutchen learns to turn these...