Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect.
Chapter 15 · The Creature
Context
Reading Paradise Lost, the Creature compares himself to Adam, the first human created by God. He recognizes their shared isolation as beings without family or predecessors, but notes the vast differences in their situations.
Analysis
The qualifier 'apparently' undermines the comparison even as it's made—the Creature wants to claim kinship with Adam but immediately admits the resemblance is superficial. The contrast structure ('but his state was far different') does not specify how, leaving the reader to infer: Adam had a loving creator, a beautiful form, a promised companion. By invoking the parallel and then deflating it, the Creature shows he knows literary models cannot accommodate his unique suffering.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Shelley uses the Creature's misreading of Paradise Lost to show how canonical texts fail marginalized beings—he searches for his story in Milton but finds only partial, inadequate analogies that highlight rather than resolve his alienation.