Miss Emily's Accomplices

Miss Emily's Accomplices

The druggist, Judge Stevens, and Tobe in “A Rose for Emily” could all be called accomplices to murder. When Miss Emily asks for rat poison, the druggist does not make sure what she is going to do with it, therefore, gives her the murder weapon. The aldermen cover up the murder, and hide the smell of a dead body rotting in her house. Tobe, her servant, does all of the shopping so that she does not have to get out of the house and chance someone finding the body of her former suitor.

The druggist gives Miss Emily the tools to kill Homer Barron. Miss Emily wants poison “the best you have” and the druggist just assumes that it is for rats. He does not ask her a second time to tell him what it is for even though “the law requires” it. If the druggist would have made her told him what she was going to do with the arsenic then he might have prevented Homer Barron's death. The druggist gave Miss Emily the murder weapon and did not make sure of her intentions.

Judge Stevens covered the murder. He got complaints about an awful smell coming from Miss Emily's house and assumed that I was “just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard.” He had men cover the smell with lime. The smell that the judge assumed was a rat or snake was the rotting corpse of Homer Barron. Miss Emily might have been caught before she died if the judge had not taken for granted that just a “smelly” woman. Judge Stevens was an accomplice to