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I read  a commentary that says: Asenath makes "The Thing on the Doorstep", "the only Lovecraft story with a strong or important female character."

Your thoughts?

 No... there's... oh shit. You're right! 

I'm really not sure.  If Asenath is possessed by Ephraim, I don't think that counts as a female character.  I think Asenath/Ephraim is male, just like Asenath/Derby is male.  Only the shell is female, the soul is male.

It probably still qualifies, since it is the only Lovecraft I've read with an important female (even if she's only superficially so). 

Mind you, that can get into the whole gender queer debate @Morgan_R loves. If your mind is male, and your body is female, what are you? 

Though this is a bit more clear cut. Aesnath was soul swapped before we really ever got to see her. Definietly male from my POV. 

But she was important. I mean, I guess it didn't have to be she. Derby coulda been married to a guy, as long as it was a relative of Ephraiim whom he possessed-ish. 

Nonetheless, without her being there it couldn't have happened, so she was important. Though it wasn't much about being a woman as much as her existing as a spouse for Derby.

But was she a she? She was possessed by the Wizard Ephraim, who was a male. 

That's my point.  I don't think you can say Asenath is a strong female, when all of her actions are controlled by Ephraim.  She was created to be her father's vessel- everything about her life is determined by him.

I think the story is actually throroughly misogynistic. The narrator, Upton, tells us that Derby's fatal flaw is his passive nature. He doesn't behave how a man should- he lets his wife take charge of their relationship. 

(Also, it's implicit that the only reason Asenath is capable of being dominant is that she is actually the wizard Ephraim.)

Compare/Contrast Helen Vaughn in Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan."  (I think this is a valid comparison- Machen is credited as being a major influence on the development of the Cthulhu Mythos.)

I agree with the fact that Lovecraft's portrayal of Asenath is misogynistic. It says that Ephraim wanted to switch to a man's body because "a man's brain had certain cosmic and far-reaching powers," whereas Asenath herself was described as having "a weak enough mind." The girl herself is not described in detail in any parts of the story, only Ephraim. She is neither a strong figure as a woman, nor even a strong figure in general within the story. She's simply a transitional husk for Ephraim to get a man's body.

She was important though. Without a vessel, Ephraiim couldn't have done what he did.

It's true though, that she definitely wasn't in a positive light, and she herself didn't do much. But she was important.

So, she was important in the way that an inanimate object is important.  The existence of Asenath is essential to the plot.

In any other Lovecraft tale, there are either no females, or any women could be utterly excised from the book without altering the story.

Exactly. Asenath's body was important and essential, but the story could have still worked if Lovecraft had decided to instead make her a man, a dog, or even a creepy doll. Derby and Ephraim were dynamic characters with distinct personalities and traits that were necessary to make the story complete, whereas Asenath herself wasn't even in the story. Lovecraft clearly does not intend for her to be of importance as a person otherwise he would have crafted her with skill equal to that which he spent in making the realistic, well-wrought, male characters.

Pretty much.

While I haven't read that much other of Lovecraft's stories, it's possible that this one at least had a female character which had a use, which is more than any other female character. That justifies the review, a bit.

Finished it via YouTube.

It was certainly a good book, as for whether Asenath was female, not really. Everything she did was controlled. The book is kinda misogynistic as well.

While I haven't read far enough to have a comment on the original question, I just have to say, it's nice to be reading something that's actually well-written. 9_9

My thoughts, which seem to be in line with everyone else's: The character referred to as 'Asenath' was Ephraim. The only female thing about 'her' was the body he was wearing -- which he obviously wanted to be rid of. The actual, female Asenath died before the story began. >_<

On another note, I found the use of biblical names kind if amusing. Couldn't find any relation though. 'Asenath' is biblically the name of Joseph's wife, and Ephraiim was one of the 12 tribes/brothers. Dunno why lovecraft used Jewish names, maybe he was some sort of antisemite? XD

Anyhow, any ideas why the title of the story was, "The Thing on the doorstep"? The thing on the doorstep didn't appear until the end of the story.

Everyone was anti-semitic back then.  The only litcrit I could find on it suggests that the meaning of "Asenath" is "she belongs to her father."  Which isn't really what it means.  Joseph's wife is an Egyptian, right?

Anyway, I guess they didn't want to give away the possession plot, but they did want to suggest creepy weirdness?

There are some Mirdrashim which say that Asenath is actually the product of Dina's (Joseph's sister) rape from Hamor, who was sent to Egypt. 

But otherwise, yeah. Egyptian. Supposedly, it means what you said ('belongs to her father') but in Egyptian I think it means, 'gift of Isis'(?). I think lovecraft probably meant it to be the first one though.

Additionally, Asenath was biblically the mother of Ephraiim, so maybe Lovecraft put it there ironically? I dunno, just trying to find deeper meanings in a shortstory. Haha.

That's actually kinda interesting. I mean, she belongs to her father, and she'll also (metaphorically) give birth to Ephraim. That actually sounds plausible. XD 

Interesting.  Here's an article that suggests Ephraim wasn't originally a Jewish name at all:

"I would venture to say that it is entirely possible- if not probable- that Menashe and Ephraim were in fact Egyptian names and not Hebrew. Joseph himself was not known to the Egyptians as Joseph but rather by his Egyptian name tzofnat paneach. Firstly, why would Joseph give his sons Hebrew names? It seems unlikely he would burden his children with something that would be nothing less than a handicap for them; Egyptians were not known to be too friendly to foreigners and jealously guarded their own culture. Not to mention the fact that Joseph was the viceroy of Egypt! Why would the viceroy of Egypt give his children Hebrew names? "

"Let us take a look at a similar example of a name whose etymological root is given as Hebrew but is more likely Egyptian, namely Moses. In Exodus 10, he is said to have been named Moses by the daughter of Phaaroh, “ki min hamyaim meshitihu” literally because he was pulled from the water. The obvious problem with this explanation is how could Pharaoh's daughter have known the Hebrew language? and even if she did, why would she give him a Hebrew name? An additional problem lies in the fact that we don’t see the word masha (as in pulling), anywhere else in tanach (other than one obscure passage in Psalms 17: yamsheini mimayim rabim).

Therefore a much more logical explanation would be the one given by Ibn Ezra (and many other commentators) on the verse in Exodus, namely that Moshe was in fact an Egyptian name ."

Certainly probable. Kinda amused you found someone sourcing the ibn Ezra, as he's almost never quoted. 

Wikipedia for Ephraim mentions "might be Egyptian in origin" and footnoted to that article.

huh, did you guys know there are two sequals wrote by a differnt author.

Lots of other authors wrote in the Cthulhu Mythos.  August Derleth did an incredible amount of work on it, but there were also Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long, and quite a lot of others that I dont' recall right now.

Does anyone else think the ending was a bit abrupt, and kind of lacked the dramatic punch it seemed to be trying for? I feel like a better endpoint would have been to continue in this vein:

"He must be cremated - he who was not Edward Derby when I shot him. I shall go mad if he is not, for I may be the next. But my will is not weak - and I shall not let it be undermined by the terrors I know are seething around it. One life - Ephraim, Asenath, and Edward - who now? I will not be driven out of my body... I will not change souls with that bullet-ridden lich in the madhouse!"

...up until the point where he does end up in that body, and is then cremated. >:D

He does basically give you the ending at the beginning though. So if you read the ending and then go back up to the top. It reveals what he did and (more or less) the aftermath of his actions.