H.P. Lovecraft, the author of The Rats in the Walls, has a modern day legacy primarily associated with the ever popular horror-fantasy stories of Cthulhu Mythos and the Necronomicon (McNeil.) Lovecraft's roots lay in Rhode Island, where is spent most of his life from 1890 until his death in 1937. He did move around some, having lived in New York for several years and have had taken trips across the United States and Canada, as opposed from popular opinion of him being a complete hermit.  His writing background started at the very early age of six. His grandfather influenced an early interest in horror-fiction, or as he would say, 'weird-fiction.' Lovecraft was not a successful or well recognized author during his lifetime, and achieved most of his fame posthumously (Joshi.)

Lovecraft's tale The Rats in the Walls tells the firsthand account of the aristocratic man named Delapore (formally known as de la Poer) that purchases an eerie estate called Exham Priory that has been in his lineage for centuries. It is told early in the story that his ancestors and relatives since the year 1000 have committed dreadful crimes. These horrible crimes are eventually the cause for his family's immigration to the United States. Delapore unfortunately comes to realize that the reason for his accused ancestral atrocities is hidden deep within the catacombs of the manor he had bought after a series of repeated night terrors and ghastly noises that had haunted him and his many pet cats. In the deep catacombs, he becomes one with his past through a sort of degeneration and is effectively found out to be retelling the story from the inside of a mental institution. 

Lovecraft's cultural influence behind his work is significantly less attractive in the modern eye. In The Rats in the Walls, racism is a theme that is not necessarily socially acceptable within any medium in today's publication industry. 

American society was changing very steadily during Lovecraft's lifetime, becoming more progressive and modern through industrialization into the early twentieth century. A very negative aspect about Lovecraft that is evident in his work is his racism. Racism in The Rats in the Walls is fairly easily picked out  --  Delapore's black cat's name is Nigger Man; more subtly, he shockingly compared his ancestors' atrocities with his cousin's decision to mingle with African Americans, as well as the theme of degeneration.

The name of the cat is a truly unfortunate event. In the time period that Lovecraft was writing, derogatory terms were still used in quite access. Derogatory words for foreigners and black's did not really become less common place until much after the time of Lovecraft's death.  Especially with the relevance of racial segregation in the south and the overall attitude towards race mixing, many forms of entertainment such as the motion picture and radio were not censored from using racially charged words or ideas; the first motion picture was a black face piece! (Meyer) Today, such language is just not in good taste for the 'family-friendly' atmosphere of accessible media (such as television and radio.) A reason why the story was initially rejected from the first magazine Lovecraft offered it to be in is because he had refused to have the cat renamed to something less aggressive. (Joshi) The reasoning behind why he named the cat Nigger Man in the first place is because he had apparently owned a cat by the same name, so one could see where he is coming from in an accidentally humorous and sympathetic sort of way; as if Lovecraft was merely paying homage to his cat through his work. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Lovecraft was pretty damn racist. 

Lovecraft's comparison between his estranged cousin that chose to be among African American's and become a voodoo priest and the known cultist, cannibalistic, and homicidal tendencies of his past ancestors is racist. To think honestly that the serial murder of townspeople and an eventual family massacre is equally as tragic as one's desire to be with people of color is beyond this student. In Lovecraft's defense, this could very well be an intentional moment of foreshadowing the human degeneration that occurs once Delapore genetically revisits his ancestral cellar of doom.  It is taught at an early age in our society that it is a small world after all, as opposed to be so caught up on whether or not one wishes to mingle with people of a different skin tone.

Human degeneration is Lovecraft's deep concern with becoming less than human. And for him, that means being any less than white skinned. Towards the end of his tale, in the uncomfort of his twilit grotto, he becomes completely mad in his recollection of the events preceding the death of his friend Capt. Norrys. He describes the sounds of the mice he has been hearing throughout the story as rising like a "stiff bloated corpse [gently rising] above an oily river that flows under endless onyx bridges to a black, putrid sea." (Lovecraft) The image of a corpse floating along a slightly contaminated river into a full on black sea (that is putrid) is a visual representation what he wants to not happen to himself. He doesn't want to be suffocated in the darkness. He doesn't want to be black. The bridges go on endlessly as to symbolize the fact that once he degenerates, that there will be no going back. 

Furthermore, after being bumped into Capt. Norrys thinking it was the rats, he goes into an introspective state. First, he recalls of his ancestor from the confederate side of the American civil war how the "war ate his boy" and that "the Yanks ate Carfax with flames." This leads into an argument within himself, for which he eventually blames Norrys for. His slang gets progressively more and more archaic from: "that spotted snake...I'll faint at what my family do...'Sblood thou stinkard, I'll learn ye how to gust...wolde ye swynke me thilke wys?...Magna Mater!..." and into Lovecraft's own made up language in his collection of stories featured in the Necronomicon, and finally into gurgles and grunts.(Azif) After his language had receded back so far as to before language was even possible (so far back he could recite Cthulu's language!) he managed to eat his friend. He became a cannibal, less than human. Lovecraft's idea of being civilized does not include the luxury of cannibalism. The way race works into this is how he has his character, Delapore, afraid of becoming a cannibal is the same way Lovecraft is afraid of not being white  --  being washed away into a putrid black sea. 

The racial themes of Rats in the Walls are fairly tame compared to several of Lovecraft's other works, most notably, On the Creation of Niggers. In the poem, he calls all non-white people evil, semi-human beasts in two lines (Lovecraft.) It should not be brushed aside that most people of his day and age in the early twentieth century were still mostly incredibly racist. Segregation in the United States was very predominant until the 1960's civil rights movement. So for his time period, it wasn't necessarily out of place in America to write poems such as that, or have views as aggressive as he did. More popular writers from the twentieth century such as Rudyard Kipling and Dr. Seuss also have racially charged works, such as Kipling's The White Man's Burden and Seuss' anti-Japanese propaganda cartoons. (Tofugu) The time period was socially acceptant of these kinds of views. It was not nearly as alarming an issue as it is in today's culture. 

Lovecraft was a racist, and a fairly proud one. His working of race metaphors and disapproval of blacks plague his works is without a doubt evident, and is unfortunately a topic he liked to write about. Then again, during the time, he was not the only one. 
