The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater

Moesha Smith

Professor Mariann Gilson

English 2110

October 12, 2015

        Why do people strive to be the same? Why not be different. In “The Big Orange Splot” by Daniel Pinkwater, Mr. Plumbean was similar to many people in today’s society. He lived on a street where all of the houses were made to look the same. Everyone actually enjoyed having houses that looked exactly alike, they called it a “neat street”. One day a seagull came along and spilled quite a bit of orange paint on Mr. Plumbean’s house. This paint made his house stand out from all the others on his street. Initially, Mr. Plumbean planned to clean it up but then he started to like being different from everyone else on the “neat street”. The people who lived on the street with him thought that he was crazy at first but then he eventually convinced them to be their own person. What precisely, could this orange splot have meant? The orange splot seemed to be an inspiration for these people to be who they wanted to be instead of trying to remain the same as everyone else who surrounded them.

        The author wrote this for the minds of young children but the book can be applied to people throughout all ages. Many people have a problem with fitting in. Why is fitting in so important to people in society? People tend to do what is easy and doing what everyone else does is just easier than being different amongst the crowd. The author obviously wanted to encourage people to be different if that is what they desire. This story shows that being different is not so bad after all. Mr. Plumbean had gotten so comfortable with fitting in that he didn’t even realize how much happier he would have been if he would have just been unique from the beginning. Although in this story, something as simple as the design of the houses symbolize diversity amongst the people, there is a much bigger picture. The author probably chose to center the story around the houses to make it easier for children to understand or grasp. Putting this idea in a child’s head at a young age is easier than telling someone who is much older or someone who has lived life a certain way for a long time. This is a short story but it seems that much thought was put into it to make it as meaningful as it turned out to be.

        The lesson from this story can be applied upon many aspects of life. Bullying is one thing that can be positively influenced by this story in many ways. Most of the time people are bullied because they are not like those who surround them. Some people need to know that being who they are is not a negative thing. If everyone was the same, there wouldn’t be different religions, occupations, political views, and other things of this sort. These things are important when it comes to the functioning of the world.