What literary term is this passage an example of from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Jr It was like coming suddenly upon some wild sight of nature a mountain forest lashed by a tempest?

Answer 1

The full passage is:

What sort of a man was he? And what sort of thing was this, anyhow?"--So all at once it occurred to Jurgis to look at the speaker.

It was like coming suddenly upon some wild sight of nature--a mountain forest lashed by a tempest, a ship tossed about upon a stormy sea. Jurgis had an unpleasant sensation, a sense of confusion, of disorder, of wild and meaningless uproar. The man was tall and gaunt, as haggard as his auditor himself; a thin black beard covered half of his face, and one could see only two black hollows where the eyes were. He was speaking rapidly, in great excitement; he used many gestures--he spoke he moved here and there upon the stage, reaching with his long arms as if to seize each person in his audience. His voice was deep, like an organ; it was some time, however, before Jurgis thought of the voice--he was too much occupied with his eyes to think of what the man was saying. But suddenly it seemed as if the speaker had begun pointing straight at him, as if he had singled him out particularly for his remarks; and so Jurgis became suddenly aware of his voice, trembling, vibrant with emotion, with pain and longing, with a burden of things unutterable, not to be compassed by words. To hear it was to be suddenly arrested, to be gripped, transfixed.

metaphor

Answer 2

This passage is an example of a simile, which compares the scene to coming upon a wild sight of nature. The use of "like" signals that the comparison is being made.