The Myth of the Noble Savage

Oroonoko kills Imoinda in a 1776 performance of Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko.

There is much to be said about the myth of the noble savage. It is embodied by a literary stock character that is not yet corrupted by society's depravity. Therefore this persona represents humanity's deep-seated and innate goodness.

Although it was believed that Jean Jacques Rousseau was the inventor of this myth, it was then discovered that it was created by the British to promote an environment where slavery and genocide where legal in the colonies. 

This belief was first established in the 17th century in England in John Dryden's epic play The Conquest of Granada. Even though the term "savage" was first used to describe a "wild man" in the play, it later became associated with a "gentleman of nature" thus adding the word "noble" to the description of the myth.

Multiple writers and philosophers started writing about the  paradoxical side of the myth such as Benjamin Franklin in Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America, Rousseau in Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men, Charles Dickens in an article named The Noble Savage and Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan.

Dances with Wolves (1990)

There are bountiful numbers of films that depict this myth from a more cinematic point of view. Moreover, we can see that these films cover a wide range of historical dramas, such as Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake, to the most critically acclaimed fictional films, like Avatar by James Cameron. These films are not just points in the cinematic timeline known for their spectacular production and astonishing innovation, they are also a portrayal of what the noble savage is about.

Avatar (2006)