And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man.
Chapter 13 · The Creature
Context
The Creature compares himself to the humans he has been learning about, cataloging everything he lacks in terms of wealth, social position, and even basic humanity.
Analysis
The itemized negatives—'no money, no friends, no kind of property'—reduce human worth to a checklist of possessions, and the Creature has internalized this brutal economic logic so completely that he lists his deformity alongside his poverty, as if ugliness were just another asset he lacks. The final clause ('not even of the same nature as man') escalates from social exclusion to ontological exile: he is not merely poor but a different kind of being altogether. By structuring the sentence as an inventory, Shelley shows how capitalism's language colonizes even self-perception.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that the novel critiques how society conflates moral worth with material wealth—the Creature has learned to measure his value in the same terms (property, status, appearance) that exclude him, which shows these standards as learned prejudices rather than natural truths.