Small Change

What is the main conflict in Small Change by Yehudit Hendel?

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Small Change is a dark and disturbing novella about an Israeli woman and her struggle with her domineering father and her harrowing experience in a Swiss jail. Rutchen finds herself in prison for illegally exchanging the coins her father has obsessively collected over the years. As she tells her story to a neighborhood friend, the extent of her trauma—not only from her prison experience but from her dysfunctional family life—becomes painfully clear. Hendel sketches Rutchen's story in an impressionist style; the actual events are, according to various critics, of less importance than the feelings and emotions attached to them.