An allusion is a reference. For example: "Man's best friend" (for the dog).
Allusion is a concept linked to the verb allude (to name, point out or refer to a person or thing). An allusion (which comes from the Latin allusĭo ), therefore, is a reference to an object, a symbolic matter or an individual.
For example: “I want to clarify one thing: when I said that there were incapable people in this company, it was not an allusion to you,” “Your words in reference to my parents hurt me,” “The coach alluded to the conflict and stated that he was not "I was going to tolerate another situation of violence within the team."
Concept of allusion
Allusions, therefore, are reviews or indications about something . If a journalist analyzes the electoral process of a country, it could be said that he alludes to the elections in his program. Likewise, when a young woman talks to her friend about her boyfriend, she will be referring to the boy in question.
It is evident that it is possible to make an allusion to a human being , an object, a situation or something of any other nature. Everything that can be expressed through language , therefore, is susceptible to being alluded to.
Using the expression "the big cheese" to name the moon is making a rhetorical allusion.
The term in rhetoric
In the field of rhetoric , an allusion is a literary figure whose content points to a concept indirectly. The allusion, in this way, suggests or hints at a meaning through the mention of certain features or properties.
The expression “man's best friend” is a rhetorical allusion to name a dog , for example. Other allusions of this kind are “the big cheese” (for the moon ) or “the wooden suit” (for the coffin ).
It is important to note that rhetorical allusion , which is also known as literary allusion , is rather indirect, since it requires a certain knowledge on the part of the recipient for its correct decoding. Generally, the reference made by the sender is of an artistic or mythological nature, that is, it refers to characters or elements typical of literature, ancient mythology, etc., that are not part of general culture .
direct allusion
On the other hand, there is direct allusion , which does rely on phrases that the general public can understand. This does not mean that these are literal sentences, where metaphor does not exist to any degree; On the contrary, as can be seen in "man's best friend", it is necessary to know the meaning of this phrase to understand the allusion.
The direct allusion, therefore, can be found in everyday speech, in the media and in any area of relative informality. Of course, they can also be used in formal and academic environments, because they are part of the culture and can be very useful to express certain ideas or generate double meanings.
Below we will analyze some of the most common direct allusions in everyday life. Perhaps the comparison of the human being with different animals is one of the most used resources to describe unusual attitudes in a person. For example, when talking about very unruly children, it is normal to say that "they seem like wild beasts" to refer to their destructive behavior or the difficulty of controlling them.
You can also say that someone "is a tiger" in their work, for example, if they have a devastating way of carrying themselves, if they obtain exemplary results with iron determination . When someone is described as "like a parrot," it refers to their great verbosity, to the fact that they "talk up and down." It is also said that a person "is a harpy" if he has twisted behavior, is false, lacks principles and only pursues his own interests without caring about the consequences.