How does Harper Lee Satirise the White Community in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Harper Lee uses a variety of authorial techniques to expose the white community obsession for gossip and lack of empathy for the black community and what is important. One of the ways she does this is by using satire. Lee exposes the care for gossip more than the care for a black man who was obviously wrongly accused through the character of Miss Stephanie Crawford, who is in such a rush to find out why Scout and Jem were sitting in the “coloured balcony” that she couldn’t finish her sentences. The reason why this is satirical, is because the white community care more about them sitting with the black people then the actual outcome of the trial, which is obviously more important. Lee represents her rushing her sentences and brimming with excitement through the use of dashes cutting of the end of the sentence, which in itself is stupid as Scout and Jem don’t have time to answer the questions; showing she’s more interested in herself then the feelings of Jem and Scout.

Another way that Harper Lee uses satire to show the white community to be laughable people, is through the use of clowns. “Well i’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks” Dill says how he wants to be a clown as they are always laughing but Jem corrects him by saying clowns are sad and that they are laughed at. Dill wants to put a twist on the role though by just standing in the middle of the crowd and laughing at them and this represents the white community and the views of Dill. The crowd describes the white community who usually laugh at the clown (which describes the black community) and Dill was originally apart of the crowd but due to the court case Dill has changed his point of view and sympathizes with the black community and is laughing at the white community for the injustices which took place. This is all represented through the satirical character of a clown.