Many beings feed from others in order to stay alive, but in the case of viruses it is normal to prevail and spew more organisms that will also attack cells until those cells die or something greater gives them a halt.  Likewise, in the short story "Rats in the Wall" by H.P. Lovecraft, the author explores the concept of the evil that is immanent to humankind along with the constant search for knowledge that leads to perdition, much like the unceasing original sin that is known to many religions.  Additionally, he refers to secrets that are kept inside and the unconsciousness of our varmint nature, which can be brought out in moments of wretched emotions such as affliction, despair or confusion; Love craft points out these behaviors through the use of symbolism, imagery and diction.

Lovecraft conceals several meanings in the copious symbols found throughout his story.  One of those symbols and perhaps the most important one is the priory, which is full of horrific mysteries within its several layers, which come to represent those found also within humans.  Like the secret passage underneath its basement where all the terrible and obscure things hid, humans also bury things deep within themselves.  The house steers the narrator towards insanity, although it had been inside him all along.  Furthermore, an equally important object in the story that Lovecraft provides the reader with, is the rats which seem to be traveling downward to the basement, like the skeletons of a human/primate breed that "descended as quadrupeds through the last twenty or more generations" (53), with which the De la Poers fed from, these were no longer humans instead creatures that had cattle like characteristics; humans that had gone backwards in evolution.  Likewise, one can see the narrator's degeneration towards the end of the story when eats his friend Norrys.  The rats can in the same manner symbolize the circumstances or that which haunts a person into perdition.  Additionally, the fact that no one can hear the rats except for the narrator as it is presented in these lines "the rats they can never hear" (55), makes them appear as the troubles that every individual may only find in their interior.  Ultimately, the nameless protagonist represent the fact that anyone can fit in the same shoes as the narrator for the simple reason that we are all humans with a hidden beast.

Lovecraft's adroitness in providing the reader with vivid imagery is noteworthy in this story as it captures not only each moment but the progressive emotions and stages the narrator lives through as he becomes a true De la Poer.  Such is the case in the following sentence: "then, as the swineherd paused and nodded over his task, a mighty swarm of rats rained down on the stinking abyss and fell to devouring beasts and man alike" (47) the narrator begins to be haunted and perturbed by the forces that are contained in the priory, slowly regressing mentally to that which confines his family to the house -- insanity.  Subsequently in "It was a twilit grotto of enormous height, stretching away farther than any eye could see: a subterraneous world of limitless mystery and horrible suggestion" (52), the confusion that dominates the narrator at this point has grown tremendously and it is hard to say whether he is frightened or simply nervous; nevertheless, he continues to be curious and willing to continue in order to acquire the knowledge.  It follows to a further description of the grotto and the multitude of bones along with skeletons that were "in postures of daemonic frenzy, either fighting off some menace or clutching others forms with cannibal intent" (52).  Lovecraft is showing that even though nothing more than bones from what was once a being remains, there is still a reminder of the horrible occurrences within the house.  Yet, more importantly those skeletons which stayed in strange postures are comparable to the narrator's situation in which it is difficult to determine whether he was attacked by the rats or if he indeed ate his friend.  Finally in "it was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth's centre" (54).  the narrator reaches a point in which he learns and acknowledges the fact that his family had been trapped in practices that the villagers with all right despised them for, revealing then his own true nature as he becomes invaded by the forces that haunt the place.

Lovecraft also emphasizes many of the aspects of the story by the repetition of certain words and its meaning as a whole to his work.  He gives words eat, chew and devour in their different tenses an important connotation throughout the story as the narrator presents us not only with the actions of his ancestors who appear to have sustained rituals involving cannibalism, but also when describes how his life was slowly breaking to pieces, eaten away into what became the solitude of an insane asylum room.  The narrator says "the war ate my boy" (54), describing how it left nothing of who his son truly was because even though he was still alive for two more years he was disabled and left to the care of his father. As was previously mentioned, the narrator had gone insane since he entered the house, but perhaps, his insanity had begun with the loss of his son only to erupt completely in the priory.  Lovecraft's racist personal views are also noticeable throughout the story, he says "the negroes howling and praying" (41), referring to the slaves who cried during the Civil War when the Union arrived to the land of his family, as if being set free was worse than being enslaved, which perhaps to a white it would appear to be that way.  The de la Poers enslaved people to eat them, however in America Walter Delapore enslaves people to work on his fields.  It is their disposition to feed from the others both physically and by their work.  It is the evil that transcending throughout the generations of De la Poers and is later reflected on the name of the narrator's cat which can be perceived as racist.  Nonetheless, it could be showing the writer's own views and struggles with the evil of his own.

In conclusion, Lovecraft shows that every human is capable of devolving as much as it is capable of evolving and that evil like a virus if it is not controlled can prevail forever. The narrator mentions his hopes "I would reside here permanently prove that a de la Poer need not be a fiend" (45), but ironically ends with the same fate as his ancestors.  He believed that with the help of scientists, understanding his ancestry would save him from the rats in the walls, but the failure shows that humans are not as far evolved from animalistic savagery. Similarly, in the same manner as humans can progress in knowledge it is possible to also revert, as it can lead to destruction.

