Acity slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation. he is much better fed and clothed, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation. there is a vestige of decency, a sense of shame, that does much to curb and check those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty so commonly enacted upon the plantation.

atrocious: adj. terribly brutal, barbaric, or especially horrifying
based on the passage and the definition of atrocious, what effect does that word have that the word bad would not?
a. atrocious explains how extreme the cruelty was beyond the idea that it was bad.
b. atrocious provides less information about the cruelty than the word bad would.
c. atrocious and bad would both affect the reader, but bad would be more specific.