In literature, the term mirage is widely employed to evoke not only the visual phenomenon of misleading illusions but also to symbolize deceptive ideals and unattainable aspirations. Writers use mirage as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of hope and reality, suggesting that what appears desirable or true might ultimately be an illusion [1, 2, 3]. It is often depicted both in its literal sense—as a shifting image in deserts or over water [4, 5, 6, 7]—and in its figurative role to critique the transient, deceptive appearances of life and society [8, 9, 10]. The concept is versatile, serving as a tangible benchmark for natural optical phenomena in scientific discussions while also capturing the ethereal, almost fatalistic allure of dreams and mirages in the human mind [11, 12]. This dual function allows authors to explore themes of illusion versus reality, inviting readers to question whether their perceptions are as distorted and fragile as a mirage.
- Romantic morality would in that case be not a reality but a mirage.
— from Rousseau and Romanticism by Irving Babbitt
- d I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish like a false mirage.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
- But the promise was a lie, the lie of the mirage, of unfulfilled hope.
— from The Great Mogul by Louis Tracy
- For the most part, the mirage of the desert is a baseless illusion, depending on the bending of light-rays by air strata of differing densities.
— from The Wheel O' Fortune by Louis Tracy
- mirage (me-razh'), an illusion of the eye by which objects like ships at sea are seen inverted or oases appear to travelers in the desert.
— from Elson Grammar School Literature v4 by William H. (William Harris) Elson
- It was to the despairing volunteer what mirage is to the thirsty traveler of the desert.
— from The Utah Batteries: A History
A complete account of the muster-in, sea voyage, battles, skirmishes and barrack life of the Utah batteries, together with biographies of officers and muster-out rolls. by Charles Rendell Mabey
- Many illusions are produced in this way, of which the mirage of the desert is one example.
— from Physics by Charles H. (Charles Henry) Smith
- They still are following the mirage that has strewn the deserts of time with the bleached skeletons of those who set out to reach it.
— from Victory out of Ruin by Norman Maclean
- How can all this be explained except by the fact that half of it is mirage or moonshine, or some hallucination of that sort?”
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- The sensation was so strong as to resemble what is called the mirage in the desert and a calenture on board ship.
— from A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga: The Yoga of Wisdom by William Walker Atkinson
- Why crystallize with a word the cloudland perfection of the mirage in which they walked?
— from Out of the Ashes by Ethel Watts Mumford Grant
- Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkish costume stands before him.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce