Kukathas is a freelance writer and editor. In this essay, Kukathas looks at how García Márquez explores the nature of communication in this short story.

In "The Woman Who Came at Six O'Clock," Gabriel García Márquez invites his reader into a private exchange between two people who enjoy a strange sort of familiarity. José, the restaurant owner, has "almost come to acquire a degree of intimacy" with the woman who visits his establishment each evening at six o'clock. Both are lonely figures and because of their loneliness they share a certain bond. As an onlooker and eavesdropper to the scene described and to their conversation, the reader of the story is suddenly privy to the details of their lives and their unusual relationship. With very little description on the part of the narrator, the reader learns about Jos...