In the short story "Rats in the Wall" by H.P. Lovecraft, the author explores the concept of the evil that is immanent in 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 the malevolence in human nature, which can be brought out in moments of wretched emotions such as affliction, despair or confusion. Lovecraft points out these aspects through the use of symbolism, imagery and diction to show that everyone contends with their own personal wickedness that at times can lead them to perdition.

Lovecraft conceals several meanings in the copious symbols found throughout his story.  It begins with Mr. Delapore depicting the restoration of the Exham priory, which was a property in England that had been owned several ages ago by his family, who previously used the name of De la Poer.  The priory is despised by the people from the nearby village due to its horrible ancestral history which Delapore knew vaguely but tried to unearth.  The house is composed of several layers, with the deepest one hidden underneath the basement.  Delapore describes this level as "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 grotto appears to be a "subterraneous world" itself, unknown to the villagers, symbolic of hell with all the atrocities people commonly relate to it.  Its immensity, "farther than any eye could see" can be illustrative of the numerous and unimaginable secrets kept within the priory.  This cave-like place is where his family had performed "horrible" acts on people they abducted from the village, with one of those acts being cannibalism.  Lovecraft uses the priory and its layers as a symbol to represent those found also within humans.  Like the priory humans also bury things deep within themselves, secrets that can often lead to them perdition or insanity.  In the same manner, the house slowly steers the narrator towards insanity, although it appears to be it had been inside him all along.  Perhaps, it was a curse that transcended through the generations, which revived in the priory.  As the story progresses, Delapore hears "low, distinct scurrying, as of rats" inside the walls, even though no one including him can find any of these animals (47).  Lovecraft chooses to make a connection between the animal and the mental state of the narrator, he makes the rats appear as the troubles that every individual may only find in their interior.  Rats are often associated with disease and uncleanliness; rats were known to carry the bubonic plague, they destroy and deteriorate. They can also come to symbolize the circumstances or that which haunt a person, deteriorating their mental state.  Another notable factor is that the rats seem to be traveling downward to the basement, like the skeletons of a human/primate breed later found by the narrator in the grotto, that "descended as quadrupeds through the last twenty or more generations" (53).  These "quadrupeds" from which the De la Poers fed, were not humans instead creatures with cattle like characteristics that had devolved; humans that had gone backward in evolution.  Lovecraft makes an allusion to the degeneration of the De la Poer family throughout the generations.  Likewise, one can see the narrator's decadence towards the end of the story when he eats Norrys, one of the De la Poer's friends that had accompanied him to explore the grotto.  

Lovecraft's adroitness in providing the reader with imagery is noteworthy in the story as it foreshadows the narrator's fate as well as captures not only each moment vividly but the progressive emotions and stages the narrator lives through as he becomes a true De la Poer .  Such is the case when De la Poer explains one of his dreams 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). It was the beginning of the manifestation of a strange series of events that haunted the narrator.  Delapore sees a "swineherd" that appears to be giving indications to his bevy to stop while the rats made their entrance.  As mentioned before the De la Poers appeared to have been breeding an abnormal type of cattle.  That being said, the "swineherd" in this case could be Lovecraft's representation of the family leading its "quadrupeds," as the rats began to slowly make him regress mentally to that which confines his family to the house -- insanity.  The story goes on 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 knowledge about the secrets that lie within the house.  Further in the reading De la Poer gives a 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).  They are scattered about the grotto, in "postures" that illustrate the last moments of their life.  To De la Poer it is hard to define whether they depicted fear or a "cannibal intent".  Lovecraft seems to create a suspense that foreshadows De la Poer's situation at the end of the story in which it is difficult to determine whether he was attacked by the rats or if he indeed ate his friend.  Moreover, he depicts a frightful image in order to show that even though nothing more than bones from what was once a being remained, the skeletons are a reminder of the terrifying occurrences within the house. 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).  De la Poer has realized it was due to the priory and the "scurrying of those fiend-born rats" that he had been conducted him to the grotto.  He now describes this place as "grinning caverns of earth's centre" adding to the grotto a hell-like image that exposes his fear and consternation.  It was there that he found a fate similar to his ancestors, becoming invaded by the evil forces that haunt the place but that in the end leads him to an insane asylum rather than death.

 An equally important literary device found in the story is diction, which is remarkably descriptive and a bit exaggerated.  It plays an important role in Lovecraft's depiction of horror and Delapore's muddled emotions.  Throughout the text, there is an extensive use of adjectives to describe various scenes.  It is appreciable in, "more wildly incredible, more frenetically repellent, or more Gothically grotesque than the twilit grotto" (53).  Though it appears as just another description of the grotto, each part of the sentence conveys something different.  De la Poer expresses that the grotto was "wildly incredible." It is obvious he must have had an immense fascination to keep deepening himself in such place; his curiosity does not cease. On the other hand, it is also noticeable that he is perturbed by what he sees and finds it "repellent" and "grotesque."  In addition to adjectives, the reader may find the repetitive use of the words "eat," chew," and "devour" in their different tenses several occasions, which appear to foreshadow the ending.  De la Poer presents the reader not only with the actions of his ancestors who appear to have sustained rituals involving cannibalism but also how his life was slowly breaking to pieces, eaten away into what became the solitude a room in that insane asylum.  By the same token, the narrator says "the war ate my boy" describing how it left nothing of who his son truly was, because even though he remained alive for two more years he was disabled and left to the care of his father (54).  Overall, the whole idea of eating takes a destructive connotation.  Lovecraft's racist personal views are also noticeable throughout the story, he once mentions "the negroes howling and praying" (41).  He is referring to the slaves who cried during the Civil War when the Union arrived at the land of his American 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, Walter Delapore the narrator's ancestor who moved to America, enslaved 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 transcends throughout the generations of De la Poers and is later reflected in 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.

Lovecraft uses symbolism, imagery and diction to shows that evil cannot be controlled because it is part of human nature.  Every human is capable of devolving as much as is capable of evolving.  In the same manner, as humans can progress in knowledge it is possible to also revert due to the evil within them, finding themselves in their own "pit of nameless fear" or in other words their perdition (51).   Lovecraft plays with this theme from the beginning when 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.

