Maintaining that, in adhering to a stream-of-consciousness style

"Maintaining that, in adhering to a stream-of-consciousness style, Virginia Woolf was forced to sacrifice unity and cohesion," Cant this phrase be considered a gerund? If yes, then what would be wrong with the original sentence?

Hi TheMastermind ,

I am happy to help.

If you are saying "Maintaining that, in adhering to a stream-of-consciousness style, Virginia Woolf was forced to sacrifice unity and cohesion" is a gerund then it must have a noun to which is modifying after comma.

But in the original sentence, we have "overlooks" - a verb. Hence, what you said is incorrect.

The reason C is correct is that "To maintain that Virginia Woolf, in adhering to a stream-of-consciousness style, was forced to sacrifice unity and cohesion" is a phrase acting as a subject.

Does that make sense?

I guess "in adhering to a stream-of-consciousness style" lies between 2 commas so that the meaning is more clear, and the the phrase is unimportant and redundant.
both patterns in C and E are frequently tested in gmat test prep.

Official Explanation Magoosh:

(A) There are a couple of issues, both very subtle, going on here. First off, “the maintaining” is not doing the overlooking. Yes, this is very nitpicky, and, in of itself, would never make or break an answer. Coupled with the second issue, however, we have an answer choice that falls short of being the best answer. The second issue is the comma between “cohesion” and “overlooks”. We do not want a comma to separate the noun phrase from its verb. To make this easier to see, get rid of the phrase set off by commas (“in adhering to a stream…”). This level of subtly is only something you’d see on the most difficult SC questions.

(B) Here we have a blatant change in meaning: Woolf is now doing the “overlooking”.

(C) The two verb forms, “to maintain” and “to overlook” are parallel to indicate a logical comparison: To do X is to do Y. The absence of a comma between “cohesion” and “is” correctly highlights this logical comparison (A comma would have represented an unnatural break: To do X, is to do Y”

(D) In lacking an actual verb to the sentence (overlooking is a participle), (D) results in a sentence that is not actually a sentence.

(E) creates a disruption between “forced” and “to”. Perhaps more salient is the fact that the meaning, “forced in adhering to a stream-of-conscious style”, is changed to “forced in sacrificing unity…to adhere to a stream-of-conscious…”

I don't even understand the meaning of the correct answer. Could someone help me with the meaning of the sentence?
I am quite confused with this "To maintain that Virginia Woolf was forced to sacrifice unity and cohesion is to overlook ...". What is the "that" even referring to?

Revankumar
The underlying structure is "To do X is to do Y." This is not a very common structure in everyday speech, but it does work. Now what is our "do X?" To maintain something (in the sense of maintain that means "assert"). What is someone maintaining? That Virginia Woolf was forced to sacrifice unity and cohesion.

Short translation:

To say (that VW sacrifices) is to ignore her planning. So if we say that she sacrifices these things, we are overlooking all the planning she did.

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