Rats in the Walls is a book about an extreme case of the mentally ill or mentally unstable that revolves around a bland character who later in the story blossoms into a much larger complex character. This is upon further analysis though at The first reading of the story, the character of Mr. De la Poer seems just like any other story of a man whose new house has a history and turns out to be haunted. This eventually affects him and causes him to eat his best friend's son. This leads to Mr. De la Poer writing his own unbiased story from the insane asylum. Even though he is caught in the cellar with the half eaten body of the captain; he blames it on the rats in the walls not himself. He does this in an attempt to point the blame away from himself, to try and prove his innocence. The fact of the matter is that Mr. De la Poer was the culprit, and even though it doesn't seem this way; he was pushed into going insane by the emotional stress and shock of realizing his family's true nature. The author of Rats in the Walls uses diction, symbolism, and foreshadowing to show that the rats are in reality all in Mr. De la Poer's head.

The author uses symbolism throughout the story to show to the reader what is actually happening in the story upon close analysis of the text. For example, the biggest point of symbolism that could be the most important in the entire story happens in the same paragraph that he eats the Captain "With my own cat leaping and tearing at my own throat." (pg. 56). This holds the most important truth in the validity that there are no rats in the walls, and that Mr. De la Poer did in fact go crazy and eat the Captain. The foundation of this argument is shown through the above quote and throughout the story. Mainly, because the cats are becoming increasingly more agitated and start howling endlessly every time that the rats are in the walls. They eventually follow the rats down to the lowest level where the city is found. "They were searching the house for some unknown source of disturbance which had thrown all the cats into a snarling panic and caused them to plunge precipitately down several flights of stairs and squat, yowling, before the closed door to the Sub-Cellar." (pg. 48) The first quote holds significance in proving that the rats were all in Mr. De la Poer's head. It shows that the only time the cats got agitated or upset, was when the rats came alive and were wandering around the house. Then all of a sudden, Mr. De la Poer's cat as said in the first quote; is leaping and clawing trying to get the rats out of his head which happens just after he eats Captain Norrys. The cats are always trying to get to the rats, so for them to attack the head of the family must mean that the rats are in his head. This means that the rats have been found in Mr. De la Poer which symbolizes that there are in fact rats in the walls of his mind.

The author uses foreshadowing to predict that in the end Mr. De la Poer already had the rats in his mind, and that the rats were not real. This foreshadowing happens when Mr. De la Poer is talking about his son early on in the story and says "Alfred, a motherless boy of ten. It was this boy who reversed the order of family information." (p. 42).  This is stating that only his son Albert knew nothing of the dark crimes committed that required his family to continually move. Albert is the first to break through the barrier that had distinguished and kept the family from their own home for all of these years. This means that Mr. De la Poer still knew that he had not escaped the family affliction; which later turns out to be cannibalism and the cause of the rats in the walls. Another example of foreshadowing is on page 44 when it talks about the army of rats that comes out from the castle to devour everything in its path including two humans. This sentence is saying that the rats lead to death and destruction. It foreshadows that when Mr. De la Poer is following the rats in his mind into the undercity of the manor; he will succumb to his own past. This is directed by the rats in his mind. They take him to the city where he's found to have devoured the body of his companion, just like the rats on page 44 did to the village.

The author also uses a form of diction to show in Mr. De la Poer's memoir to prove his innocence is actually a damning example of his dark mind that is filled with the "rats" of the manor. "I seemed to be looking down from an immense height upon a twilit grotto, knee-deep with filth, where a white-bearded daemon swineherd drove about with his staff of fungus, flabby beasts whose appearance filled me with unutterable loathing. 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 men alike." (pg. 47) This passage describing his dreams is what really defines and shows the darkness inside of his mind. The diction used in the passage to describe the daemon is unutterable loathing. Loathing is defined as intense dislike or hatred. This shows that he is not scared of the daemon, but rather is seemingly used to seeing him and despises the beast; which is a good representation of his inner daemon. Another form of diction he uses in this story to show that Mr. De la Poer is indeed a dark twisted soul and the rats were indeed in his mind, is the word "Devoured" which is used over and over to describe eating. This implies that a rat does not eat, but devours his food. This shows that he had been thinking of these dark thoughts all throughout the book. The darkest word choice used by the author and Mr. De la Poer is in the way that he describes Captain Norrys "I was entertained by Capt. Norrys, a plump, amiable young man ... " the diction used here is undeniably frightening in that Captain Norrys is being described as plump instead of round or just fat. Instead, he is referred to as plump which is a word that is used to describe food. This truly is damning evidence toward Mr. De la Poer, because it proves that he is not thinking like a normal human, but rather like a rat that has truly invaded his mind. This is the main way that the author uses diction to prove that the rats are not in the walls, but in his head.

The author uses symbolism, foreshadowing, and diction to prove that in Mr. De la Poer's story the rats are not real, and instead are a part of the walls in his dark twisted mind. This is shown in the representation of symbolism between with the cat attacking the master after the rats led him to the undercity, where he devoured Captain Norrys. Also, it is understood in the foreshadowing of his son being the only one to escape the dark past, and the army of rats that swept through the town devouring everything in its path including people. In his diction, H. P. Lovecraft shows the twisted mind of Mr. De la Poer through the repetition of the words "devoured" and "plump" to describe people and the way that things were eaten throughout the story. All these things come together to show that the rats were not real, and were just a part of Mr. De la Poer's mind.

