BB Writing Question p724 #14

<p>"Writing about people whose circumstances were deplorable, Dickens used the novel to protest social conditions in Victorian England"</p>

<p>BB says no error, yet the "writing about" part still seems illogical to me. The present progressive tense would seem to imply that Dickens used the novel to protest while at the same time writing the novel, which doesn't make any sense.</p>

<p>He used the novel to protest social conditions in the sense that he wrote the novel with them in mind. So he didn’t write the novel and THEN protest. He wrote the novel as a tool for protest, protesting as he was writing it (protest can be an expression). So he didn’t USE it as much as he UTILIZED it</p>