In the story "A Rose For Emily," how could you prove that Emily premeditatedly murdered Homer?I have to prove that Emily killed Homer on purpose...

In order to prove premeditation, you have to carefully consider
the scene when Miss Emily goes to the druggist to buy the arsenic. When she is asked why she
needs it, she refuses to answer. Something in her demeanor made the druggist not want to even
return to the counter to give it to her.

In order to really
understand the story and better "make your case" for premeditation, you must take some time and
figure out the accurate time line and sequence of events. Faulkner wrote the story in a stream of
consciousnes fashion, but his math is very accurate and logical, if you take the time. If you put
the story in a rough chronology you discover that:

1. Homer and
Emily started going for carriage rides.

2. Then people started to
talk about Miss Emily's relationship behind her back. They were concerned that someone of Miss
Emily's standing really shouldn't be dating someone like a Homer -- a northerner and a day
laborer.

3. After what is probably close to a year, they still
gossip about the relationship, but now they feel sorry for her because it is more clear now that
Homer is NOT going to marry Miss Emily. It is stated in the story that he is "not a marrying
man." The town is concerned, so the call her Geirson cousins to come stay with her and get her to
see the relationship for what it is.

4. Then Miss Emily buys the
poison. The town thinks she may kill herself, but then they discover that she isn't. Instead,
things seem to be moving forward in her relationship with Homer.

5.
Then she buys the mens toiletry set.

6. Then Homer leaves for
awhile.

7. Then Emily kicks the cousins out of the
house.

8. Then Homer returns.

9. Then
Homer is never scene again.

10. Then the smell comes from around her
house.

If she bought the poison in anticipation of killing him so
that he couldn't leave her, and then made it look like their relationship was fine, then that
could be part of your case for premeditation.

The other fact that
could help the case is the elaborate care she took with the upstairs room where the townspeople
found Homer. The room is completely decked out "for a bridal" and Homer's dead body is found "in
the attitude of an embrace" while the men found a "long strand of iron gray hair" on the pillow
beside him. She obviously intended to kill him, arrange his body in the house and it that bed,
and then sleep with the corpse for what turns out to be at least a couple of years before she
shuts up the room permanently.