This article attempts to interpret the protagonists of the iconic works of the 1990s: the Polish novel Panna Nikt [Miss Nobody] and the American series Twin Peaks, the film Fire, Walk with Me, and the book The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer through the prism of the category of girlhood, viewed as a particular existential experience of oscillation between childhood and female adulthood, a period of initiation. Using feminist and gender critique, the heroines’ girlhood is analyzed in the context of their identity and position in the network of social hierarchies and symbolic structures in which they function.

Keywords: girlhood, Twin Peaks, Panna Nikt, initiation