
H.P. Lovecraft’s short story, The Rats in the Walls, is a horrifying tale about the slow demise of a man through the evil contained in his family’s house and past. Throughout the whole story, rats are continuously mentioned. They are found to be present in every eerie occurrence that the narrator experiences. It is in this way that Lovecraft uses the rats to symbolize the insanity and the supernatural that lurk in the priory and its past. They are a testament to the belief that family sins are impossible to escape.

Rats are first introduced into the story to add emphasis to a folk tale about the priory. He describes this folk tale as a horrific story of “a legion of bat-winged devils [that] kept Witches Sabbath each night” (Lovecraft). Immediately after he describes this scene, he says that the “most vivid of all, there was the dramatic epic of the rats” (Lovecraft). He then goes on to describe an epic tale of a large army of rats that came out of the castle and attacked the surrounding area, killing multiple animals and two humans before the carnage ended. The vicious acts of the rats in these local folk tales foreshadow the outcome of the rest of the story. The rats are shown to represent evil in the priory even before they start actively affecting the narrator. To put the significance of the rats in perspective, the narrator compares them to a “Witches Sabbath” that was summoned nightly by a “legion of bat-winged devils” (Lovecraft). In fact, the narrator actually says that the most vivid was the tale of the rats. Most people would surely consider a cult of Witches and devils more terrifying than a heard of rats. The observation that the narrator is putting a heard of rats above a devil’s Sabbath in terms of severity should show that the rats are extremely significant to the narrator subconsciously. 

Some time passed in the story before rats were mentioned again. The narrator explained how his servants were complaining about how the cats were being rowdy the night prior. The servants suggested that the cats could be acting up because of the presence of rats. The narrator quickly rejected this proposal by saying that there is no way that that could be possible because rats have not been present in the castle for “three hundred years” (Lovecraft). This sequence of events is necessary in order to derive the meaning of the story. This section tells the reader clearly that there could not have been any rats in the castle because there have been none around where they live for over three hundred years. Rats are related to the supernatural even more than they were before. The link between rats and the evil past of the house is confirmed because the only other time in the story that rats were mentioned was in the beginning when they were compared to the Sabbath of Witches. This establishes a relation between rats and an evil supernatural presence, setting the tone for the next time that rats will be referenced in the story. 

The next time that rats appear in the story is that night after the narrator fell asleep. He falls asleep that night and wakes up suddenly due to his cat acting up, similarly to the way he was reported to have acted up the night before. His cat is “looking intensely at a point on the wall” (Lovecraft). He hears a distinct low “scurrying… of rats” (Lovecraft). The cat continues to pace around the room, looking for evidence of what was bothering him. However, he fails to find anything and the narrator can’t sleep for the rest of the night after this. This was obviously a very traumatizing event for the narrator. The only thing that he knows about rats and the house that he lives in is that they were involved in tales of a demonic cult and that there is no way that there could be any rats in the house. The narrator starts to act terrified. After hearing the scurrying of rats with his own ears, there is no doubt that there is something unexplainable going on. There are only a few rational possibilities that could have happened. The narrator is either hearing things or mice somehow ended up infesting the castle. 

The following night, the narrator is exhausted from his long day of unsuccessfully investigating the sounds of the rats in the walls. He falls asleep early and starts to dream. This particular nightmare is a scene of him “knee-deep with filth” (Lovecraft). He dreams of rats “raining down on the stinking abyss” that started eating “beast and man alike” (Lovecraft). He is abruptly awoken from this dream by Nigger-Man. This time there is no question why Nigger-Man was acting up. Completely surrounding him is the roaring sound of “the verminous slithering of ravenous, gigantic rats” (Lovecraft). This event is a turning moment in the story, it is the first time that there is no doubt in the narrator’s mind that there are rats in the house, and a lot of them. There is also no denying that Nigger-Man is hearing these noises. The scurrying of the rats leaves the narrator in a terrified state. Once again, however, when the narrator tries to figure out what the source of the noise was in the morning there is no trace of any rats ever being there and the servants never heard a sound. This event shows that this incident was more than just rats in the walls.

After having multiple hallucinations of the scurrying rats and finding evidence of the family’s cannibalistic past, the narrator explores the house with his acquaintance Capt. Norrys, whom he describes as “plump” (Lovecraft). He starts to hallucinate again and says he hears “voices, and yowls, and echoes” (Lovecraft). Something bumps into him; “something soft and plump. It must have been the rats” (Lovecraft). In the next paragraph it is revealed that he had eaten Capt. Norrys and was found speaking gibberish. Even though the narrator was found eating Capt. Norrys, he continues to deny it. “They must have known it was the rats” he says, describing how he believes that they are trying to hide the secrets of the house. “The rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats in the walls” (Lovecraft). The rats ultimately lead the narrator into complete insanity. He describes Capt. Norrys as plump and then he says that plump rats bump into him. The plump thing that bumped into him was undoubtedly Capt. Norrys but he was in such a crazy hallucinogenic state that he mistook him for the rats. He ended up blacking out and completely losing his mind while he ate Capt. Norrys. But he still blames it on the rats. He continues to believe that the rats in the walls are who ate Capt. Norrys and he is innocent.

In conclusion, throughout the entirety of this story rats are used as a symbol of evil and insanity. It is not the rats themselves that drive the narrator to insanity but the evil contained in them. An evil that proves to readers that family history and demons are impossible to run away from. Without the rats, the story would be missing the symbol that contains its central message of inescapable evilness and destiny. 
