Emily the Criminal Mastermind In the story A Rose for Emily, Emily murders her lover using poison.

        She is very calm, cool and collective.  After her father dies, some people visit her to offer sympathy, yet she is “dressed as usual with no trace of grief on her face.”  Even though she has killed Homer, when the people in the town visit her because she doesn’t pay her property tax, she speaks to them as though there isn’t anything wrong.  When she goes to buy the poison to kill Homer, she speaks with certainty that she wants to buy the poison.  “I want arsenic,” she says.  This indicates that she has contemplated to kill Homer.  When the druggist insists that she tells him what she is going to use it for, she silences him with her look.  She knows what she is doing.

        She can be seen as controlling and manipulative by the silence of the Negro, her house keeper.  The Negro goes out to the store every now and then to buy food from the market, he doesn’t talk to anyone.  Though the author does not indicate whether the Negro knows about Homer’s dead corpse in the bedroom, it’s hard to imagine that he doesn’t know about it.  The neighbors complain of the smell, which they do not know that it’s from a dead body.  For the duration that the body has been in the house, it’s impossible to imagine that the Negro has no knowledge of it.  Assuming that he knows, yet he doesn’t talk to anyone about it shows that she has control over him.

        Ruling out that she’s suffering from insanity, one can only conclude that she’s criminal mastermind.  Even though her father is abusive, she is able to have meaningful relationship.  Her relationship with Homer shows that she can be sociable.  After her father’s death, she shows no grief.  While having Homer’s body in the bedroom upstairs, she attends to her guests as though nothing is wrong.  At the same time, she is able to keep the butler from talking to anyone about anything.  Planning to kill Homer, she buys the poison without any hesitation even though the druggist asks her many questions.  Using the control that she has over the person under her and her environment, she gets away with murder.