The relative sterility and immobility of this postcard are similar to the Civil War photographs. Although technology at the time imposed a rigidness and ignorance of movement that photography today does not have, both sets of photographs still show an after-the-fact scene that only hits at who did the violence and how. While the Civil War photographs only showed the victims of the battle in question, these postcards only are able to show the victims of the lynching and the criminals in a non-dynamic relationship to each other. While the people in the mob are depicted as part of a cohesive community, the mutilated bodies are alienated, alone, and separated from both the perpetrators and each other. The Robertson article in the New York Times alluded to the function of lynchings as not a punishment system, but psychological tactic that would always serve to other black citizens and forcibly prevent real change from occurring. The alienated bodies portrayed in these postcards reflect the psychological warfare that accompanied the physical harm of lynchings. If a "good death" in Christian society is one surrounded by family, having a measure of control, and a prompt and proper burial, a death by lynching would be the complete opposite. Family members and members of the black community would also have to grapple with the threat of a spiritually unsatisfactory death, on top of an unjust killing, an immobilizing and immediate threat.
