Perspectives

This part of the study guide will give you a few points to put Lucy Caldwell’s short story “Cyprus Avenue” in perspective. We will look at the literary period and similar works.

Literary period

“Cyprus Avenue” is a postmodernist short story. Postmodern literature is very varied, making it hard to define it as a strict literary movement.

Some typical elements of Postmodernist works are seeking reader’s response, fragmentation, lack of traditional structure and plot, unreliable narrator, or metafiction. 

“Cyprus Avenue” stands out as a postmodernist short story through the fact that it is not plot-focused and has a somewhat fragmented structure. However, its most postmodern feature is its unique narrative style, which combines a second-person point of view with the future tense. Furthermore, the second person-narration indicates that the writer is directly focused on readers’ responses, because ...