Each of C. S. Lewis' adolescent protagonists—Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy—were meant to be religious allegories, though his adult protagonists were not meant to be as symbolic.
- (A) Each of C. S. Lewis' adolescent protagonists—Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy—were meant to be religious allegories
- (B) C. S. Lewis' adolescent protagonists—Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy—were all meant to be religious allegories your answer correct
- (C) Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy—each of them C. S. Lewis' adolescent protagonists—were meant to be religious allegories
- (D) Meant to be religious allegories—Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy— was each a protagonist of C. S. Lewis
- (E) Meant to be religious allegories—Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy— were every one of C. S. Lewis' adolescent protagonists
In D, "meant" is a past participle. Since past participles are never nouns, "meant to be religious allegories" cannot be the subject of this sentence. Instead, it is a past participial phrase, and it modifies the subject of the sentence. Now, what's confusing here is the mixture of dashes and commas, so just pretend like all the dashes are commas. There's a comma between the participial phrase and the compound subject ("Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy"), and then a set of commas setting off the appositive phrase "each a protagonist of C.S. Lewis" from the rest of the sentence. So the second dash is part of the set of commas/dashes that set off the appositive. This means that "Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy" is the subject of the verb "was." (If the appositive were the subject, there would be NO comma before "was"). So we do have a S-V agreement error in D. In E, "meant..." is again a participial phrase, only now, "Peter, Edmond, Susan, and Lucy" is the appositive because it is set off by dashes and there is NO comma/dash before "were." So now, "every one..." is the subject. However, "every one" is singular, and the main verb "were" is plural. So we have an S-V agreement error in E.
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