The term “deformity” in literature has been employed with remarkable flexibility, serving as both a literal descriptor of physical irregularities and a potent metaphor for moral, social, or emotional failings. In classical texts, Plato and his interlocutors use it to underscore the link between physical imperfection and the experience of pain or evil ([1], [2]), while Enlightenment thinkers like David Hume and Francis Bacon extend the notion, contrasting physical beauty with the deformity of vice or error ([3], [4], [5]). Romantic and Gothic writers, notably Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Nathaniel Hawthorne, invoke the term to evoke the tragic and the grotesque—ranging from the unnerving uniqueness of a monster’s creation ([6], [7], [8]) to the societal shaming in personal interactions ([9], [10]). Across these works, “deformity” becomes a multifaceted symbol, imbued with a duality that challenges the reader to reconcile external appearance with inner virtue and vice ([11], [12], [13]).