The Muslims have rich culture and customs. There is a pressing need of old world to co-exist with the new world in order to preserve its legacy. If we say that someone has blue blood, it means that they are from a family that has a high social rank. In the story of Blue Blood of the Big Astana by Ibrahim Jubaira, the girl named Dayang-dayang has the blood of a high social rank in the Muslim society. The story discussed the life of the Muslim before it accommodated the Christian community.
The story is striking for how much, a Tausug Muslim world, exists as a discrete element. With couple of referents to the area or time, the astana is passed on in its wholeness, as is fitting for a story of an ambivalent youth encounter. The storyteller Jafaar, a devastated vagrant, is left being taken care of by the nearby datu, whose house is called an astana. With the strong emotion of the words written, Jubaira made the story hooked to the readers.
The abusive or mean Dayang-Dayang made me feel pity for Jaafar as a reader.
In Blue Blood of the Big Astana Jubaira uses hare-lip and blue blood as motifs to demonstrate that family line is more important than economic status in determining social class. To do this, Jubaira connects these words to the family lines of Jaafar and the Datus daughter, and then shows that they separate the two even when their economic statuses are reversed. Jaafars continuously mentioned hare-lip is linked to his family line and is used as the explanation for his place in society. Towards the beginning of the story, the connection between lineage and Jaafars hare-lip is introduced when Babo says his deformity is a result of his mother slipping on a trading boat during pregnancy. By revealing that she was on a trade boat, this statement hints that Jaafars mother was of the working class. Thus, Jaafars resulting deformity is a manifestation of his lowly family line.
In the story, we could feel how Jaafar needs affection and attention from a loving parents which was Jaafar forbidden to have due to an unfortunate event. Even though the Datus daughter was so abusive and mean to him, he accepted it that it was really his faith and was also grateful despite of the things and words he receive from the Datus daughter because he still had a place to sleep and a food to eat. As Jaafar realized that he is no longer important and doesnt have a role anymore to the Datus daughter, after Dayang-dayang married, he escaped from the astana after realizing how disposable he can be. Jaafar is an admirable character because despite his deformities he strive hard for him to have his own farm and a small fortune, which gave him contentment to the life he have.