The literary use of “pretext” is remarkably versatile, often functioning as a façade behind which characters hide their true intentions or justify questionable actions. In historical narratives such as Xenophon’s Anabasis [1] or Livy’s account [2], a pretext often serves as an excuse masking ulterior political or military objectives. In novels and essays—from Kate Chopin’s nuanced explorations of social constraints [3, 4, 5] to Dumas’s adventures in intrigue [6, 7, 8]—the term is employed to reveal characters’ hidden motives or to critique societal hypocrisy. Meanwhile, in philosophical and reflective works like those by Rousseau [9, 10] and Bergson [11], “pretext” becomes a metaphor for the veneer under which human vanity or self-interest is concealed. Thus, across genres and eras, “pretext” is a tool that both exposes the gap between appearance and reality and invites readers to question the legitimacy of accepted reasons.