Resisting Bodies studies the female body in contemporary society. Combining anthropology with recent literary theory in the framework of cultural studies, Helga Druxes examines novels by twentieth-century authors Jean Rhys, Marguerite Duras, Margaret Drabble, and Monika Maron. While different in tone, place, and time, their work all features female protagonists upon whose bodies societal ills are inscribed.

Through careful textual analysis, Druxes traces the progression of the female body as it ages, falls ill, is healed, is tortured, gives birth, and dies. She illuminates the significance of the body as the outward shape of our identity in society, as constituted by social norms as well as personal experience, and the desire to restore wholeness to a fragmented self.