Every person has his or her own ideas when he or she is reading a text closely. Here are some of my thoughts of reading a passage by close-reading "The Rats In The Walls," written by H.P.Lovecraft. 

It was really interesting that when I discussed with my classmates after I read the whole story far away, I had a different perspective with everybody else. I don't think Delapore, the protagonist, was insane at first. In my opinion, he was sane until he slipped into the dark yawning brink. "I told the man that there must be some singular odour or emanation from the old stonework, imperceptible to human senses, but affecting the delicate organs of cats even through the new woodwork."(Lovecraft, 36) This is what Delapore told the servant after the night the first incident occurred, and it indicated that his mind was still clear that he would react commonly with what he had experienced. 

Another thing that I noticed during the reading, according to Delapore's question "Why did he (Capt. Norrys) urge me to watch Nigger-Man and listen to the cats outside, and why did he guess wildly and vaguely at what could have aroused them?" (Lovecraft, 39) is that the no one else could hear the rats besides Delapore himself and his cats. That is also one of the reasons people thought he was out of his mind. I personally think that he could hear the rats because it represented foreshadow that some power wanted to show him the "underground world." He could have never found out how inharmonic the sub-cellar was. I'm certain because "I had now been shewn the thing which certain forces had wished to shew me"(Lovecraft, 41) proved that some forces were showing him something, and the cats could feel it because of their mammal instinct. Although this power is unclear, we can make assumption on it. It might come from his ancestor who wanted him to find out facts about the sub-cellar and inherited it, or it might come from those people who had been "fed-up" by his ancestor who wanted to expose what his ancestor did. Generally speaking, Delapore was not insane over this point. 

However, he was insane eventually when he slipped into the brink. His mentality was defeated step by step, which caused him to turn mad and the reason is obvious. After he went through the "ghastly array of human or semi-human bones"(Lovecraft, 41) and other horrific scenes, he became weaker that at the point he felt the "ecstatic fear," his mind was totally crushed down. 

When we close-reading on a passage "far away", we are referring to the whole picture. However, I find it even more interesting when I read a passage specifically. I am really curious about how Lovecraft foreshadowing the story; I found out that there are various ways to foreshadowing an event. For example, the dream, that harassed Delapore the whole time, about the twilit grotto really showed up at the end. The cats and the rats foreshadowing the sub-cellar, which is the way to go down to the twilit grotto. The rats also set up the maze about "who killed Capt. Norrys", which extended the maze to other mazes like "were the rats real" and "why are Delapore and his cats the only characters who could hear the rats." It really amazed me that those mazes can actually connect to each other without any conflicts. 

I'm also amazed by the diction Lovecraft used, too. For example, in the paragraph about Delapore slipped into the brink, "ecstatic" is the word I first noticed. The words ecstatic and fear are conflictive, but when he put it in the passage, they oddly seem natural. They described the exact situation Delapore was in when he turned crazy mentally. Ecstatic, which means a feeling or expressing overwhelming happiness or joyful excitement, brought us a question about "what was this kind of excitement that will make a man terrified." In my opinion, Delapore was excited for achieving his initial goal, which was to find out his families' history, according to "It was this legendry which definitely turned my attention to my transatlantic heritage, and made me resolve to purchase and restore the family seat"(Lovecraft, 32), but the history and the facts about the captivity of human beings destroyed his mentality. In a word, I find it fascinating that only two words can cause readers like us to think deeply. 

The choices of words are not the only thing I find them fascinating, but also the discovery of syntax. "The Rats In The Walls" has a lot of old-time sentences and the arrangements of words into sentences are beautiful since it was written in August -- September 1923. For instance, "I retired early, being very sleepy, but was harassed by dreams of the most horrible sort."(Lovecraft, 37) This is a good example of emphasize how horrible those dreams were. Nowadays, people would probably just say "harassed by horrible sort" instead of putting horrible at the end of the sentence to address the extent. I think the arrangement of the words is really important that different order of several words can change the meaning of the sentence. There are also some good symbolisms in the story, too. One of my favorites is "I saw my old black cat dart past me like a winged Egyptian god, straight into the illimitable gulf of the unknown."(Lovecraft, 44) Lovecraft compared the cat with a winged Egyptian god and used the word "dart" to show us how fast the cat wanted to get the sound. I think this symbolism is very interesting and impressive. 

Close-reading a passage makes me more attentive. At the same time, I've learned a lot during doing it such as the syntax, grammar and word choice. Through close reading, I understood more why people love reading, and I will continue doing it as a habit because it will educate me and makes me a more knowledgeable person.   
