Why was Lord of the Flies banned?

Why was Lord of the flies banned?

The ‘Lord of the Flies, is the novel written by William Golding. Before the book was published successfully many publishers were reluctant to do that. The book deals with the story of a group of school going boys who formed their own world of living, with their own standards and principles of living. It is otherwise called as their own civilization. This book was considered as a ‘bestseller’ initially. Later, it was banned as lot of violence and bad language was observed to have been used in this novel. This novel has brought its author, William Golding a ‘Nobel Prize’ for literature.

Books will be banned either when they speak truth that was not digested by the society or if they penetrate deeper than the limits of the faults and difficulties of the society. Lord of Flies was also listed in the books that were considered for ban by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. This novel always will be one among the top 100 books to be banned every year. In 2006, the number of this novel in the list was 70.

The reason for banning this novel was an opinion expressed here. The novel tells that human nature itself is very much violent and we cannot aspire for retrieving ourselves from the general human tendency to destroy the good in us. This idea has popularized this novel among the youngsters or teenagers. The movie ‘Lord of the Flies, was also banned as it involved lot of gore. The story in the book talks about children raping each other and murdering one another. The book tells us that humans have always with them primal instincts which were inherited from the animals as humans evolved from the animals. The book dealt with reverting of boys to their primal instincts and carrying out violence. The author tried to say that humans will revert back to their animal instincts if not checked properly. This aspect was not liked by several readers and hence it was banned. In fact, the author tried to explain the fragile nature of the youngsters and nothing away from that.