When all the students dropped their books at same time a deafening silence commanded room what literary technique is used in this sentence?

Here's why:

* Personification is giving human qualities to inanimate objects or abstract concepts. In this case, "silence" is being given the human quality of commanding the room, which is an action only a person can perform.

The sentence uses personification to create a vivid image of the sudden, overwhelming quiet that follows the students dropping their books.