Jesse Bram and the Power of Myth

1754bram-myth

2018-06-24

Jesse Bram and Campbell’s Myth

By

Harley L. Sachs

Many of my stories begin with the question, “What if?” In The Mystery Club Solves a Murder, it’s “What if a body is found on the roof of the Rose Plaza?” In Stoprape.com it”s “What if the victim of a military rape gets revenge by putting up a web side with the perp’s picture and address? In White Slave, “What if Sutherland who fell off the yacht Miss Chief didn’t die?”Then there’s The Search for Jesse Bram. with the question “What if a space alien cadet is marooned on the planet URth?”

The Jesse Bram story has an ambiguous title. It is a search for the missing cadet and also Jesse’s search for his own identity. Inadvertently this science fiction saga fits into Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. It is said there are only three plots for a story: boy meets girl (all love story variations), the Brave Little Tailor (a weakling slays the giant, dragon or whatever), and the man who learned better, as in Hamlet. Campbell defines them differently. Slaying the dragon is about conquering one’s self. The quest is the search for the Holy Grail. In the Jesse Bram story there are two parallel threads: find Jesse and Jesse finds out who he really is. There is also a love story, Jesse caught between his alien lover and the lovely URthling who helps him survive the atmosphere of a polluted URth.  Like many quests, cf Ulysses, Jesse encounters three temptations: the half breed caretaker of the life station and his voluptuous female, the crypto Christians who believe Jesse is Christ incarnate, and the crypto Jews who have the key to his identity. It all comes together in the climax when the searchers find him and he escapes the throng of cannibals who want to eat him to achieve salvation.

I named the main character Jesse, a variation of Jesus, and Bram. As in many of my books, Bram is a family name as I wish to keep the names of family alive if only in my books. 

In light of Campbell’s lecture on universal myths, I suspect that myth, like the life force in the earth, emerges in whatever soil it is found. Myth is a subconscious manifestation of forces that permeate our lives. It is in the nature of story telling itself. Myth is fundamental.