"The Rats in the Walls" is short story 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. During, tPoer seems just like any other story of a man whose new house has a history and turns out to be haunted. However, the house and his family's past begin to affect him which causes him to eat his son's best friend and his only friend. This leads to Mr. De la Poer writing his own 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 "The 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. 

Symbolism is a powerful technique that the author uses to indirectly lead the reader to come to certain ideas. For example, a 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 cat proves that the rats were not real because throughout the story the cats are running all along the walls of the house chasing the rats that only he can hear trying to keep them from getting in his head, and when the cat starts attacking him it symbolizes that the rats have gotten to him and he is one of them now. 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 or every time De la Poer hears them. The first quote holds significance in proving that the rats were all in Mr. De la Poer's head because it shows that the only time the cats got agitated or upset was when the Mr. De la Poer heard the rats running through the walls in which he was the only one that heard. 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. This means that the rats have been found in Mr. De la Poer which symbolizes that the rats were never real instead a disease that was slowly pushing Mr. De la Poer to madness. 

The author uses foreshadowing to show 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 foreshadowing that he is the first one in the family not plagued by the metaphorical rats. This is foreshadowing that Mr. De la Poer does still have the family information or issues that plagued the family; which later turns out to be cannibalism and the cause of the rats in the walls that were never real. Another example of foreshadowing is 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. So, when Mr. De la Poer is following the rats in his mind into the undercity of the manor; this foreshadows that he is going to his own destruction.  

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 is terribly dark and ominous such as filth, staff of fungus, swineherd, swarm of rats, stinking abyss, and devouring beasts. In using these types of words to describe his dream it is shown that Mr. De la Poer has a very dark subconscious. By using such diction it is showing the darker side of him that can use words such as abyss and devour instead of much softer and kinder words is showing that somewhere in his twisted mind deep down he is capable of doing dark things such as eating a man. Also, loathing is defined as intense dislike or hatred showing that he is not scared of the daemon, but rather is seemingly used to seeing him and despises the beast; almost as if it some dark part of him that he cannot be rid of unlike his son. 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. Implying that a rat does not eat, but devours his food much the same way that Captain Norrys was devoured by De la Poer. Just another way of proving that there were no rats at all just a man that's mind has snapped, also 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 the nail in the coffin toward Mr. De la Poer, because it proves that he is not thinking like a normal human, but rather like a rat that can see another human as plump. 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 his dark twisted mind. This is shown in the representation of symbolism between with the cat attacking the master instead of looking for the rats that were so prevalent throughout the story. Also, it is understood in the foreshadowing of his son being the only one to escape the dark past. 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. 

 

 
