Why was Lord of the Flies banned?

Lord of the Flies is known as being one of the most controversial children's books ever written, telling the story of a group of school children who become stranded on an island and quickly descend into disturbing levels of chaos and violence.

One of the reasons this book is controversial is due to the intense violence of certain scenes, which might upset children. For example, Piggy is intentionally killed with a rock, which is described in the following passage:

Piggy fell 40 feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig after it has been killed.

With passages like this, some parents are unsurprisingly uncomfortable with their children reading this book. Another act of violence in Lord of the Flies is when the boys cruelly kill a pig, which is squealing in pain. This is described using grotesque imagery by Golding, with passages that would make adult readers wince.

Unlike other children's books, The Lord of the Flies shows the darkest aspects of human nature, presenting children as being capable of sadistic acts of violence and brutality. While Golding is suggesting that humans are violent by nature, this nuanced message might not be understood by young readers. As such, there are concerns that children might get the wrong message from this kind of book.

Another key issue parents and educators have is the representation of bullying. We see bullying throughout the book, directed particularly towards Piggy, who struggles with asthma and poor eyesight. Piggy is called cruel names such as "fatty" and is physically attacked on a number of occasions. This kind of relentless bullying is perhaps not the best thing for young audiences to be reading, not only because it might upset them, but also because it might encourage bullying.

Considering this, it is perhaps understandable why parents, schools, and libraries banned children from reading this book. Young people are arguably not the best audience for this kind of information, as they might not be able to fully grasp the message Golding is trying to convey.

William Golding's book, The Lord of the Flies, has been banned from schools on more than one occasion.  In fact, according to the American Library Association, Lord of the Flies is book number 8 on the association's list of frequently banned books. I do want to be clear though, the book was not ever completely banned from all schools. The reasons the book was banned are the common reasons that most books are banned from schools; too much bad language, sex, violence, and racism. Other reasons to ban the book have focused on the lack of morality shown in the book by the boys. In 1981, it was challenged at the Owen, North Carolina high school. The claim was that the book was “demoralizing, in that it implies that man is little more than an animal.”  

Lord of the Flies is widely considered such a staple in high school classrooms today that most people would be surprised to find that this book was considered too controversial for classroom consumption just decades ago. School districts in Canada, Texas, South Dakota, Iowa, Arizona, and New York had raised challenges about the book being used in classrooms from the 1980s to the turn of the 21st century.

The most common reasons, of course, were that the book promoted violence, utilized racial epithets, denigrated certain disadvantaged populations, sanctioned gratuitous nudity, and condoned the use of profanity.

Although some of these school districts challenged the use of the book in their classrooms, the book was never completely taken off reading lists. Some schools allowed students to read alternative literature if they were so inclined.

In 2006, some parents from Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia, objected to the teaching of an essay connected to the Lord of the Flies syllabus. Accordingly, the essay, written by E.L. Epstein, appropriated the use of rape language to describe the torture and killing of a sow in the book. The essay was included in the back of all Lord of the Flies copies assigned to students. Although the parents did not have a problem with the essay itself, they felt uncomfortable with the assignment set by a teacher. To complete the assignment, students had to imagine themselves in place of the sow while it was being tortured and killed in a sexually suggestive manner.

The matter was first brought to the attention of the teacher, who refused to stop assigning the controversial homework to students. Likewise, the curriculum committee at the high school also refused to ban the essay. The parents brought their concerns to the district media committee. The committee had three options it could pursue: either use the book with the essay, purchase new copies without the offending essay, or keep the book as is and allow students to read an alternative work. In the end, fourteen of the fifteen member committee voted for the second option. Students who chose to read an alternative work were not penalized for not participating in classroom discussions of Lord of the Flies and for not completing the assignment based on the Epstein essay.

Although the parents were not completely satisfied with the chosen option, they admitted that such an option at least allowed students and parents to opt out of participating if they had reservations.

So, you can see that there are various reasons why the book would be banned or challenged by school districts. Some people object to the material in the novel, and others object to the way the novel is taught. To avoid controversy, some teachers have chosen to skip the novel altogether and to assign other books for classroom teaching.