This situation violates the sympathy of a white father, and he is forced to destroy the solidarity of the family for himself and his mulatto children. The presence of white parents only proves worse for the slaveholder causing them to be cruel and resentful towards his slave children. Douglass shows dehumanization and the negative impact of slavery on people with Mrs. Sophia Auld. Before slavery took its complete effect, Mrs. Auld was a sympathetic and helpful woman who understood moral righteousness. When Douglass was first sent to Baltimore to work for the family of Hugh and Sophia Auld, he is passionately excited and impressed at how well they both treated him. Douglass found that Mrs. Auld was so kind that she started to teach him the alphabet and was teaching him how to read. When he first came in contact with Mrs. Auld, she was never a slave-owner, and she presented to be, "a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings. She had never had a slave under her control previously And proper to her marriage she had been dependent upon her own industry for a living" (Douglass 44). .
Nevertheless, recognizing "the white man's power to enslave the black man" she changed into an evil slave owner (Douglass 45). Mrs. Auld's husband demanded that she stopped teaching the slave to read. From this moment on, Mrs. Auld transformed into a different woman than she was before. Douglass describes her in a whole different approach. "That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon" (Douglass 45). Slavery affected Mrs. Auld as a person to rule over another human being. Enslavement caused her to change, and it also dehumanized her and made her less sympathetic as a human. Thomas Auld was never a kind person, as though he struggles with adapting to owning slaves.