Allusion, Delusion, Illusion
An allusion is a quick indirect mention of something. It's a literary device that stimulates ideas, associations, and extra information in the reader's mind with only a word or two:
Magicians love to create illusions, or visual tricks, like making a tiger disappear or sawing a person in half. Your eye can be fooled by an optical illusion, and Dorothy and the gang get to the bottom of the Wizard's illusion and discover he's just a regular guy. Illusions aren't always glamorous; sometimes they're just hiding the man behind the curtain:
Delusions are like illusions but they're meaner. A delusion is a belief in something despite the fact that it's completely untrue. Hence the phrase is delusions of grandeur. People with delusions often wind up on the shrink's couch. Whether you are trying to deceive yourself or someone is trying to deceive you, if you believe the false idea, you have a delusion about reality:
Also to note: Novelists love an allusion, an indirect reference to something like a secret treasure for the reader to find; magicians heart illusions, or fanciful fake-outs. But tricksters suffer from delusions, ideas that have no basis in reality. (Description from Vocabulary.com) |