Episodic memory and the footprints of cognitive dissonance in William Shakespeare's selected plays

Memory is the vault of moments which determine the present, inspire the future, and create the person we are today. Episodic memory which is a part of the memory system, allows an individual to mentally travel through time towards a particular experience which may be in the past, in the future or it may be a counterfactual situation. On the other hand, cognitive dissonance which is also associated with the mind occurs when a discrepancy is detected between an individual's belief system and behaviour. This study's aim is to analyse the instances of episodic memories and cognitive dissonances in Shakespeare's plays Othello and Hamlet while investigating the correlation of both theories. The study mainly follows Endel Tulving's episodic memory and Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance approaches with a close reading of key moments in the selected plays. In this context, it has been observed that the correlation of episodic memory and cognitive dissonance has an impact on the character's decision-making in the plays Hamlet and Othello.