“The Rats in the Walls,” by H.P. Lovecraft is a short story about Mr. Delapore who has lost his son to The Great War, who then moves to England to restore his ancestors home where, 400 years ago, his ancestor Walter De La Poer murdered his family and fled to the United States. While living in the house, Delapore begins having nightmares and hearing noises in the night, which cause him to slowly begin to lose his mind. He then proceeds to lead an archeological expedition into the catacombs beneath the house, where he discovers that his ancestors are famous for cannibalizing the local villagers. In the depths of the catacombs, like his ancestors, he too cannibalizes his friend. H.P. Lovecraft uses the architecture of the house, and immense imagery to depict the inescapable intimacy of ancestral horror and their secrets that are better left unknown.

The Exham Priory is such an old, long standing building that almost every possible style of architecture previously used in that area is present in the building.  It is situated near the village of Anchester, Wales, England.  Most of the upper building, especially the towers, are Gothic, but underneath it there are large traces of Roman and Saxon structures.  The foundations and cellars of the building are mostly Roman, although there are traces of Druidic, native Cymric, and other ruins as well.  The Exham Priory has been the site of many temples and churches.  It is undoubted that the site housed a Druidic or Ante-Druidic temple.  These temples and churches were key components to leading Delapore to madness.  There were undoubtedly sacrifices made there to ancient Druidic Gods.  These sacrifices involved cannibalism and/or the feeding of living people to large packs of vermin.  Per legend the Barons Exham were undoubtedly the worst, as they often murdered their first-borns, who mostly seemed less inclined to join in their evil ways.  Roman cults somewhat adopted those rituals some years later. The priory has a vast underground cavern filled with cages, sacrificial rooms, and bottomless pits where his ancestors most likely hid their victims and the bones of the dead.  The barren valley that the Priory overlooks is especially writhe with grave stenches and disembodied howls.  Little is known about what rituals really went on under the Priory.  It has been hinted that the cultists and the de la Poer’s used human captives for meat, and sacrificed victims to Nyarlathotep.  The villagers of Anchester have always been afraid of the Priory, knowing that it and its former owners are cursed.  The architecture of the building shows how archaic it is and how many different societies have resided in the building.  “It was then that Sir William, examining the hewn walls, made the odd observation that the passage, according to the direction of the strokes, must have been chiselled from beneath” is an exceptional way of describing the picturesque ancientness of the architecture and how some stones should be left unturned.  The ancient caverns below the building connect to fissures in the cliff that overlooked the waste valley.  Further down was a twilit grotto with an enormously high ceiling, and a length stretching far out of sight.  Even in this massive subterraneous world there were different styles of architecture.  Each new additional level in the sub-basement is clearly visible. In each deeper level is another altar with different ideographic carvings on it.  It shows how far back this cannibalistic way of life goes.  The further down into the cavern, the more ancient the human skeletons become, all the way to skulls almost indistinguishable from a gorilla’s.  The revelation that his ancestral heritage is nothing more than cults of cannibalistic heathens led Delapore to a regression of sorts.  Eventually the mad faceless god, Nyarlathotep, drove Delapore to madness, as in under three hours he had consumed half of his friend, Captain Norrys, just as his family had done all those years ago.

Throughout “The Rats in the Walls”, Lovecraft uses extensive descriptions of colorful imagery to describe the scenes of unique horror. He meticulously selects each word with the purpose of evoking specific images in the mind of the reader. Each little detail serves to produce an uncanny picture, painted with a striking, fine brush. It mixes with his use of eloquent speech to create a horrible detailed picture for the sake of putting the reader on edge. The sheer amount of detail is nauseating, recalling every single minute piece of information, and putting it into the frightened mind of the reader. It is like recalling a nightmare in vivid, gross detail. “After ploughing down a few steps amidst the gnawed bones we saw that there was light ahead; not any mystic phosphorescence, but a filtered daylight which could not come except from unknown fissures in the cliff that overlooked the waste valley” is an exceptional example of Lovecraft’s use of such profound imagery, describing how ominous the pathway down into the catacombs is. This point started his spiral downwards into barbaric madness.

H.P. Lovecraft used the architecture to show Delapore’s dive into madness.  The way the house was constructed help mask their cannibalistic secret.  He also used astronomical imagery to immerse the reader into the horrific nightmare that Delapore goes through.  “Lovecraft submitted the tale to the Argosy, but it was rejected as being ‘too horrible’; it found a ready haven in Weird Tales (March 1924)” (H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction, 240).  Through many different elements of literature, Lovecraft demonstrates how important ancestry is and how when confronted with continuing family lineage, but discovering the horrors said family has committed, can drive a man to madness.
