Rats in the Walls is a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft that illustrates two key points throughout the works.  Firstly, the author shares how it is very difficult for a person to change their life because of their past and secondly, Lovecraft uses Delapore’s act of descending to the lower floors as a comparison to the main character’s declining mental heath. 

Even though a person may have changed the circumstances in their life and the way they live their life, they still will never be able to escape their real blood heritage.  This heritage comes from their ancestors and the way they were raised.  The short story begins with the main character, Delapore, narrating the backstory about the estate he has acquired from his ancestors three centuries prior to the present time. The estate’s name is “Exham Priory”, however, people consider Exham Priory to be cursed. The estate has many floors with different time periods associated within each floor. As you descend in floors, you descend in time.  The base floor of the estate is pre-Druidic, followed by Roman, then comes the Saxons floor, followed by Normans, then finally Modern. The estate has been involved with ancient pagan cults and acts of cannibalism. Delapore chose to ignore what he has heard and goes on redecorating the estate. After he fixes up the old castle, odd things begin occurring. The most prominent sound was the sound of rats in the walls. Which is not possible, as he just had them redone. His cats start to become irritated and start clawing at the noises in the walls. Delapore chases after these noises with his son’s war friend, Captain Edward Norrys. Norrys says he cannot hear the 

sounds. They set up traps and catch nothing but still the cats and Delapore can hear the scurrying of rats. Finally, they decide to enter the deep innards of the estate. 

Delapore bought the estate from his ancestors who died a long time ago. He states that the estate had been sitting there for such a long time, that no one had touched it since the “reign of James the First.”  The readers know that Delapore can see soldiers shouting and the women screaming during the fight of the Civil War. We then see Delapore and his father receiving their hereditary envelope, which they are unsure of what it contains. Delapore’s father ends up dying without letting him know. Some believe that the estate might be haunted because of his ancestors, which accounts for the reason for the “rats in the walls” which could possibly be Delapore’s ancestors. The ancient myth was that there were rats in the walls. Even though there are not any rats in the walls, the main character believes that his ancestors could be haunting him, hence the reason he cannot escape. The author uses this correlation between the rats and Delapore’s life to tell the reader that no matter how much he tries to change the way he lives his life, Delapore will never be able to escape his real blood heritage.

The second theme of this short story is the comparison of Delapor’s declining mental health with his descension into the lower levels of the house. As Delapore descends down the stairs, he goes deeper and deeper underground. As he is doing this, he sees many different levels of evil. The first few floors are modern and original, but as he goes deeper into the ground, he starts to see deeper levels and meanings of evil. He and a group of others go into the basement, which ultimately leads them to an ancient underground city where they see cannibalism. Delapore sees a “pit of bones” which the reader later learns is the reason that lures the people into the city. Near the end of the story Delapore turns into a cannibal himself, which causes him to end up in a mental institution. Thus, the ultimate descent into madness. 

In conclusion, the author uses two main themes in the short story “Rats in the Walls”. Although Delapore tried to change his life, circumstances from his past stopped him from really changing. As Edmond Burke wrote, “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.  Lastly, Lovecraft uses Delapore’s descent down the stairs to describe his descent into driving himself insane. Lovecraft, as a writer, is obsessed with the idea of the fear of the unknown. Much of his writing is about this theme, but this short story captures the theme “the fear of the unknown” the best. Delapore was very intelligent but also extremely ignorant because he made many poor choices throughout the story, leading him to go mentally insane. As Lovecraft says, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”