THE TRANSFORMATION OF DESPAIR TO HOPE AS ASSERTED ON RYUNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA’S SHIRO

: Psychology in literature is how characters move through relation of body and mind. Shiro is Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story about white dog who ignores his friend, Kuro, that being caught. That ignorant deed haunts and makes him try to kill himself but actually he helps many people. One night, he speaks to the moon how he apologizes for everything. Then, how is transformation from despair to hope be asserted on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Shiro ? Through qualitative method, this writing underlines changing condition of Shiro from having despair to being hopeful. Supported by theory of Randolph M. Nesse, the transformation is reflected when Shiro sees others beside himself. He leaves his loneliness and joins others for happiness. He has paid his debt by supporting others’ lives. In conclusion, Shiro’s denial for not helping Kuro changes when experiencing hope from otherness rather than selfness. bagaimana kebahagiaan. Dia kesalahannya membantu Kesimpulannya, membantu ketika harapan keberadaan orang keegoisan sendiri.


INTRODUCTION
Characters in literature are always in line with inner understandings of self. The characters usually involve any mental condition that shapes dialogues and interactions in a story (Gilbert, 2019;Pecchenino, 2015). In some ways, psychological point of view exists to underline psychic and mental ideas of a character. The attitude is also reflected in stories as how characters move inside them. Being sad, happy, angry, even despair and hope are matters of psychological perspectives of characters as responses and reactions of events (Huen et al., 2015;Yuniar, 2014). Moreover, those situations also happen in everyday life as literature is direct mirror to realities of human beings.
Shiro is Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short story that tells a white dog personified like human being (Wibawarta, 2005). His condition changes from being coward to fearless. His attitude shifts from being ignorant to mindful.
Then, the character also shows crucial differences from being in despair to be so hopeful. He does not really know that he could be so brave at all. However, his attitude switches into the strong one when he moves from his own self to perspective of otherness. He is thanked by Napoleon, a small dog, whom he helped before (Wibawarta, 2005). The situation has totally changed his life and how he sees the world afterwards. This is absolutely matter of psychological understanding in how characters are meant to be analyzed through its mental status from the beginning to its end of the story.
Then, how is transformation from despair to hope be asserted on Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Shiro? This writing underlines the changing condition of Shiro from having no hope to being hopeful. His despair comes from his own regret to Kuro that he sees in himself.
His hope arises when he sees condition of other people, especially Napoleon. The transformation of despair to hope is assserted when Shiro sees others beside himself. He leaves his loneliness and joins others for happiness. He has paid his debt for not helping Kuro by supporting others' lives (Wibawarta, 2005). Shiro's psychological condition is in denial for not helping Kuro. Then, he gets more power by responding to Napoleon.
He finds better confidence by experiencing otherness rather than own selfness.

RESEARCH METHOD
By using qualitative method, certain concepts and written data are analyzed to answer the question in this paper. More elaborations related to opposite analysis are also provided in addition furthermore.  (Wibawarta, 2005, p. 192) Second, Shiro returns home to meet the children after running so fast. He tries to tell the children what he has faced before, but they only hear his barking. The children thinks Shiro as another dog as his skin has turned black. Shiro jumps intentionally and the children think that he is a mad dog. They start to hit Shiro to make him run away. Shiro keeps barking and they throw some stones to him. He is denied by the children and becomes homeless as he is dumped by the children. This is the quotation:

真っ黒！そんなはずはありません。白はま だ子犬の時から、牛乳のように白かったの ですから。
"All black? That is impossible, because he is as white as milk since he was small." (Wibawarta, 2005, p. 194 (Wibawarta, 2005, p. 194) 坊ちゃんも、 坊ちゃんは小径の砂利 じゃり を 拾うと、力一ぱい白へ投げました。 "While the boy takes some small stones from the street then throws them to Shiro with full force." (Wibawarta, 2005, p. 194 (Wibawarta, 2005, p. 202) The quotations and its explanations above assert experience of Shiro. His chronicle of life shows how he denies his friend and then is abandoned by the children. He did something and gets his karma afterwards. Then, he tries to amend his wrongdoing. He succeeded to help many people. Moreover, he finished his journey by trying to change former despair to latter hope.
The following explorations discuss the idea of the transformation furthermore.

Matters
Dealing with various difficulties, people tend to face despair in their life. Despair is indication of accumulation of stress in life (Huen et al., 2015;Pecchenino, 2015). The stress could not be omitted since there is no way out. In other matter, the stress could be handled but other problems still exist and require mindful solutions. In short, despair is inability to improve situations into better ones. The situation varies from depressed mood, loss of interest and pleasure, to problems of self-image (Hagen, 2011;Huen et al., 2015). It could be simple hopeless situation at first but it may be neurotic as symptom at the end. At first, it comes from suffering, but then the loss of its credibility of self could be worsened by anguish and sadness (Lane & Munday, 2017;Pecchenino, 2015).
Despair is a condition out of hope. The word is derived from Latin word desperare that means down from hope (Shanahan et al., 2019).
This hopeless situation then medically could be cured by some medications. However, psychological perspectives would like people to find hope to defeat the despair. By finding hope, more various way out could be attained and it will increase self-confidence again (Hagen, 2011;Pecchenino, 2015). As analogy of despair in drowning situation, those who feel despair should find help or a rope to reach surface. As they reach surface, then people can breathe easily again after surviving from danger. In this case, despair and hope is seen as two side of opposition. If there is hope, despair could be gone. In reverse, despair is matter of absence of hope (Pecchenino, 2015;Roepke & Seligman, 2016;Shanahan et al., 2019).
Meanwhile, despair and hope walk together in various conditions. Indeed, that situation is not similar for every individual yet it is not 50:50 at all. Some people face more despair than hope, while others confront in reverse. Both of them are so humane. There will be no getting without losing (Lane & Munday, 2017;Pecchenino, 2015). The main idea is how to keep hope as long as possible and realize it in every part of life. This is matter of being positive. It is also used to cope with despair that is so negative. However, human could not think only positively without considering the negative.
Even the first step of thinking is doubting or stating something as negative (Gilbert, 2019;Pecchenino, 2015). Therefore, the logic of hope must be formerly shaped through understanding of despair. Realities of despair should not be avoided but understood. By doing that, hope could arise as people have succeeded to handle despair and be ready to disseminate hope.
Randolph M. Nesse states correlations between despair and hope in four evolutionary matters (Nesse, 1999). First, despair is matter of hopelessness. This points to former explanations in how despair is actually problem of absence of hope (Nesse, 1999;Pleeging et al., 2021). Those who feel depressed and then have despair are founded not by their own selves but stress of surroundings. Despair is used to be emphasized as how internal surrenders could no longer respond to external conditions (Hagen, 2011;Lane & Munday, 2017). Condition of despair reflects inability of own self to correspond to surrounding consistently. Second, despair is a condition out of wish. Persons who have this feeling could not think outside current status quo. They think that they face dead ends that are so unbearable that block their minds (Nesse, 1999;Pleeging et al., 2021). It is in reverse of hope that speaks wish of open ideas. Hope is synonymous to wish, but wish is deeper and more active than hope. So, despair is not only condition out of hope, but also unwillingness of having wish as intention to go forward (Huen et al., 2015;Lane & Munday, 2017).
Third, despair is matter of anxiety. As have been explained above, anxiety is problem of facing experience that could threaten self. It could be divided into two sections; every day and neurotic anxiety (Chopra, 2020;Hagen, 2011;Thorne, 2002). In every day anxiety, the problem is so usual since people used to face things that are quite unknown to them and firstly see those as threats. The neurotic anxiety is more complicated as disorder that could relate to severe traumatic pain of past experience. Both anxiety could be built up by exhaustion and stress, loss of someone, and even feeling lonely or abused (Huen et al., 2015;Pleeging et al., 2021;Thorne, 2002). This despair speaks through suffering. The bad things keep coming in and self could no longer contain them all (Chopra, 2020;Nesse, 1999). Instead of going out, people in despair lives under pile of stress and even guilt. Fourth, despair is matter of psychological pessimism that hinders any further interpretations of life. The mental is so blocked that any self-esteem is lost. In many cases, despair of pessimistic people make them think themselves as target of any world's threat (Hagen, 2011;Nesse, 1999;Thorne, 2002). He or she must bear anything only by himself or herself. This also results to inability to find other people as supporting factors. Even other people are also imagined as threats. This is due to anxiety that follows into trauma involving own self as object of others. In despair condition, persons feel that they are burdens of others, or in reverse as well (Chopra, 2020;Gilbert, 2019;Moore, 2006). Indeed, this is untrue, but their pessimism does not allow people in despair to grow more confidence.
Those four points above reflect Nesse's explorations between despair and hope. His main effort is to clear up any undermining sayings to despair. In an emphasizing point, he rejects idea that despair and hope walk in different movement of directions. It seems that despair is pulling human beings out of the world full of hope (Hagen, 2011;Shanahan et al., 2019).
Despair and hope actually walks together as both could amend each other. Any solution to despair could not be realized if hope is seen far away from it. Both consequently move together in such intertwinements (Chopra, 2020;Nesse, 1999). He also refuses idea of indication that despair is such sin and hope is virtue. Somehow, despair also has its own virtue as it realizes limitations of human beings. Despair is not to be given penitence as sin, but it should be appreciated as supporting virtue (Lane & Munday, 2017;Moore, 2006;Thorne, 2002).
Nesse might speak only for every day anxiety that result to simple despair. However, his idea also expands to neurotic anxiety that could be amended by abundant hopes as well. This is similar to his rejection of despair as pain.
Despair is potential transformation of hope in a cycle (Huen et al., 2015;Nesse, 1999;Thorne, 2002). It could be such pleasure too since people could feel how themselves react to actions of others. Interestingly, despair is also a piece of happiness since by having suffering then people could understand more about the position of themselves and others. In advance, persons could come up with other options to stay with or go away from others whom are stated as threats.
Nesse then states stages of how despair transforms into hope (Nesse, 1999). The stages involve how despair is broken down into its fundamental elements and each of them is boosted to show hope as its potential. First, defenses are such diseases. In this case, although defense mechanism is usual in every day anxiety, he underlines that more defenses could worsen matter of stress. If stress is piled, then despair becomes so abundant and makes people more unable to get out from it (Nesse, 1999;Shanahan et al., 2019;Thorne, 2002). The defense also states that pain and suffering should always be avoided so that anxiety could go away either. This is incorrect since both of them are so  (Huen et al., 2015;Nesse, 1999;Pecchenino, 2015). Trauma could not be left as it is but have to be handled through better emotions. This is matter of survival in any saying. Looking into despair and hope is how people could survive from time to time. Despair is not the number two of hope. It is the number one with its own understandings that should be followed (McNally, 2022;Nesse, 1999).
Third, identification of sadness is needed furthermore to find out any benefit that follow.
People should prevent immediate losses (Shanahan et al., 2019;Westerhof et al., 2017). This is used to keep any sadness in its position without giving it chance to grow bigger. In grief, recovering the lost object is needed if possible.
By doing recovery, more hope could be attained as well. Then people should avoid any situation and action that could be related to loss (McNally, 2022;Nesse, 1999). This is to rebuild desire again out of any threat that is unwanted.
Memory should be amended too so that any loss could not intervene more to own self. Fourth, persons should try to understand the cause of loss. Indeed, this one is so difficult since it touches undesirable condition (Shanahan et al., 2019;Westerhof et al., 2017). Still, this is needed to welcome any sense to the suffering so that rationality could come to surface again.
Reassessing major life strategies should be done either to find changes inside or outside. This is necessary to as a process of considering more alternatives that could be attained (Nesse, 1999;Pecchenino, 2015;Westerhof et al., 2017).
Replacing the lost one is also fundamental if possible. The patterns of the lost could also be determined further to follow trials of despair going to hope. Sharing with other people is also important to get extra help. More suffering could be avoided to by speaking what kind of threat that may still exist or not. Those ideas are how despair should be paid attention so that building a bridge to hope is more possible to be realized (McNally, 2022). Fifth, commitment should be the first action to do as indication of change. By having it, hope could be measured and be understood again (Nesse, 1999). Self-confidence as well as self-esteem could be found again by having commitment to own life and others (Moore, 2006;Pecchenino, 2015). Standing alone is never wrong but people should realize that there are people who support them from all directions. People should trust and love others socially to prevent any defect that may come (Shanahan et al., 2019;Westerhof et al., 2017). This is to transform desperation into hope.

3 Otherness as Dissemination of Hope
The story of Akutagawa about Shiro represents matter of despair and hope. Shiro, a white dog who is personified, avoids helping Kuro, the black dog (Soelistyowati, 2019;Wibawarta, 2005). He regrets his deed for doing nothing for Kuro. He faces his own denial for not being brave to help other dog. He knows that he could take that risk but he feels so coward to move forward. Shiro could have attacked the men who catches Kuro so that he could escape.
However, he runs away and then thinks about his denial all the time afterwards (Rini & Soelistyowati, 2016;Wibawarta, 2005). Denial is part of defense mechanism when someone feels anxiety of threat or pain. Instead of doing something, denial condition refuses to understand the difficulty in front of a person.
Consequently, the person at that time will feel calm since he or she thinks the problem is away.
However, it still exists and that person only avoids it. This refusal to see the real problem will disturb his or her mind again. It is due to denial is about unwillingness that in other time will shape such regret and even stress.
How Shiro faces his denial is matter of internal expression and thought. It states inside his mind regarding to certain condition that takes role as a background (Rini & Soelistyowati, 2016;Wibawarta, 2005). Moreover, the internal situation is also clearly seen in Shiro's unhandled despair. The denial haunts him and forms such despair. His truly situation, for not helping Kuro, makes Shiro so lonely at that time.
He thinks nothing else but only his denial that slowly blocks his mind to find other alternatives.
Shiro could not find other meanings rather than his own meaningless condition for letting Kuro to be caught. His despair comes to surface and he could not handle it. He is stuck and he even tries to do suicide to amend his denial (Soelistyowati, 2019;Wibawarta, 2005). By ending his life, he hopes that his stress as well as his sin will go away. He does not know whom should he apologize to since Kuro is gone. He is drowned and actually only himself could help him. However, he could not do that since his denial has totally closed his mind to accept anything. The unhandled despair is reflection of Shiro's inability to do anything (Soelistyowati, 2019;Wibawarta, 2005). That inability comes from the denial itself that stacks more stressful situations inside him.

Beside internal matters, situation of
Shiro is also affected by external factors. When he returns home, his master's children does not recognize him at all since his skin has turned into black. The children hit him with a stick by regarding him as a mad dog. He keeps barking but the children throw more stones at him. He has lost his friend, Kuro, and now the children as his closest families are gone either (Soelistyowati, 2019;Wibawarta, 2005). This situation worsens internal mind of Shiro. He is no longer recognized as a white dog. He is forgotten and loses his roles in wider society.
Shiro could no longer response since he is alienated from his closest families. Even his action is out of sense due to others, who do not sense his presence as well. When common person is not recognized, he or she is considered out of any of others' life. He or she is not regarded as important, or solely seen as part of memories not to be remembered (Yuniar, 2014).
This also happens to Shiro and builds more stress to him furthermore.
While more stress is stacked by internal and external sides of Shiro, the identity is lost to be realized again. Shiro does not really know his identity anymore. Drowned in his despair, Shiro could only walk around the city doing nothing important (Wibawarta, 2005;Yuniar, 2014 (Rini & Soelistyowati, 2016;Wibawarta, 2005).
Moreover, his only wish is to die by doing suicide. His purpose is solely on it colored with feeling of self-loathing. Shiro assumes himself only as failure full of nothingness in his life. He has surrendered to struggle again.
Furthermore, the story of Shiro is explored and explained by Nesse's concept of despair and hope. What Shiro feels is matter of hopelessness (Yuniar, 2014). He does not feel any hope anymore. He could no longer response to others as he is blocked from his own surroundings (Nesse, 1999). His condition is out of wish since there is a dead end and he is out of any openness. His happiness turns into unwillingness that results to potential to do suicide. Shiro is also deeply drown in anxiety (Soelistyowati, 2019;Wibawarta, 2005). He has trauma since he let go of Kuro and could not find any way to amend his ignorance before. His suffering speaks more to exhaustion, loneliness, and stress resulted from loss of someone. His life is full of pessimism. Self-esteem is already gone.
He could not feel himself anymore. He even thinks that his own self is burden to himself as individual (Yuniar, 2014). He never stops blaming himself and assume that others do the same action to him. That is the main reason of any negligence that Shiro feels.
According to Nesse, any despair is always having chance to be transformed into hope (Nesse, 1999). Indeed, the transformation is not automatically happened. Despair is seen into its singular elements then each of them is enhanced to make hope survive (Roepke & Seligman, 2016). It is quite interesting how hope is actually found inside the despair. It is also main construction of Nesse's ideas in which binary opposition between despair and hope is denied (Nesse, 1999). Despair should not be left then people find hope in other matter. Regarding Nesse's ideas, despair should be understood to its roots and be amended. People need to take focus on despair and solve the problem of it.
Then, hope could be found by correlating to despair. In an analogy, despair is the first emotion that people feel, then it could be transformed to hope (Milona & Stockdale, 2018;Roepke & Seligman, 2016). It is correct that having despair is so usual in facing such anxiety.
It should not be avoided since it is natural. What is unnatural is people get drawn to it in deeper situation and longer time. It is since despair is not the main reality, neither is hope (Hanson, 2021;Nesse, 1999). Despair is negative emotion and hope is a positive one. Both are not the main realities, but both are bridges to what are real. Therefore, having despair is similar to crossing a bridge into such shadow reality. Then, people should cross another bridge of hope to return to reality of life (Milona & Stockdale, 2018;Roepke & Seligman, 2016).
The transformation from despair to hope in story of Shiro is interestingly seen from matter of otherness. At this point, the existence of Shiro moves from him to pays more attention to other characters (Soelistyowati, 2019;Yuniar, 2014).
The matter or otherness is also shifted from the first to the end of the story. Condition of otherness shapes self of Shiro from having denial and despair into hope. This also shows that hope is not situated in himself but it is accentuated in presence of others. In other words, it is otherness that changes Shiro from his own despair into perseverance of hope (Soelistyowati, 2019;Wibawarta, 2005). By analyzing matter of otherness, perceptions from external points are brought deeper into internal matters. Therefore, ideas of otherness enrich as well as widen perspectives of own to others.
This also makes such belief that despair could be eroded then moved into hope.  (Yuniar, 2014). Here, the wishes are approaches to go out of hopelessness. Those are also seeds of hope that could reach its peak in being kind to self and others.
The transformation from despair to hope in the life of Shiro is stated through otherness.
This is in line with Nesse's perspectives in which paying more attention to others could amend self's bitter past conditions (Hanson, 2021;Nesse, 1999). The main idea is not solely about own self. Self is crucial but it should never take out matters of others in the following (Milona & Stockdale, 2018;Yuniar, 2014). The best one is practicing goodness to others that comes from matters of self. Self is never meant to be selfish but its position is enriched by position of otherness. In Shiro's story, matters of the seeds of hope from Napoleon results to him being accepted again by the children (Wibawarta, 2005). He has abandoned his friend and the fixation is to amend relations with others. He also apologizes afterwards and this has made him being loved again by the children.
He is lost by his own denial but found again into love of others after amending wrong things.
In story of Shiro, matter of hope is realization of redemption. He did denial in the past then he confesses his wrongdoing and.says sorry to apologize (Wibawarta, 2005;Yuniar, 2014