As It Should Be – Derek Mahon – Leaving Cert English

Context

“As It Should Be” is one of Derek Mahon’s most unsettling and morally complex poems. It tells the story of a man found dead in a ditch, apparently a fugitive or outcast who was killed or who died in hiding. The poem’s title is deeply ironic: the death is presented as something society considers fitting, appropriate, “as it should be.” But the poem’s imagery and tone undermine this complacency, suggesting that the man’s death exposes something ugly about the community that permitted or even welcomed it. The poem is characteristic of Mahon’s ability to find darkness beneath the surface of apparently ordered, respectable life. This poem appears on the 2027 Leaving Certificate prescribed poetry list.

Summary

A man has been found dead in a ditch in the countryside. The community responds with a mixture of relief and satisfaction: this is how things should be. The outsider, the troublemaker, the one who did not fit, has been removed. Order is restored. But the poem does not share the community’s satisfaction. Through its imagery and tone, it suggests that the death is not justice but a form of social violence, the elimination of someone who did not conform. The natural world, the landscape, the weather, and the animals all seem to participate in or comment on the death, creating an atmosphere that is both beautiful and sinister.

Analysis

The Ironic Title

The title “As It Should Be” immediately establishes the poem’s ironic stance. The phrase suggests approval, rightness, the restoration of proper order. But when applied to a man found dead in a ditch, it becomes chilling. Who decides what “should be”? The title ventriloquises the voice of the community, the respectable citizens who believe that the death of an outsider is a good thing. Mahon places this voice front and centre, then spends the rest of the poem quietly dismantling it.

• “As It Should Be” – The phrase belongs to the community, not to the poet. Mahon uses it to expose the cold logic of a society that eliminates what it cannot accommodate.

The Dead Man

The dead man is presented without sentimentality but with a quiet dignity. He is an outsider, someone who lived on the margins of society. Mahon does not tell us exactly who he was or what he did. This vagueness is deliberate: it makes the poem applicable to any society that punishes those who do not conform. The dead man could be a criminal, a political dissident, a social outcast, or simply someone who did not fit the community’s idea of respectability.

The Landscape

Mahon’s landscape is both beautiful and complicit. The natural world does not mourn the dead man. The countryside continues as normal, indifferent or even hostile. This use of landscape is characteristic of Mahon: nature is never just a backdrop but an active participant in the poem’s moral drama. The beauty of the setting makes the violence worse, not better, because it suggests that the world will absorb any atrocity and carry on unchanged.

Literary Devices

• Irony: The title and the community’s response are deeply ironic. What “should be” is a euphemism for social violence.
• Pathetic fallacy (inverted): The landscape does not reflect human grief. Its indifference is itself a comment on the community’s callousness.
• Ambiguity: Mahon deliberately withholds details about who the dead man was and why he died. This ambiguity universalises the poem’s concerns.
• Tone: The poem’s controlled, almost detached tone mirrors the community’s refusal to be disturbed by the death. But beneath the surface, the poem is deeply disturbed.
• Imagery: The ditch, the countryside, the weather. These images create a world that is simultaneously beautiful and menacing.

Mood

The mood is cold, controlled, and deeply unsettling. On the surface, there is calm and order. Beneath the surface, there is violence and moral failure. The poem creates a sense of unease that grows as the reader recognises the gap between what the community says (“as it should be”) and what has actually happened (a man is dead). The mood is one of quiet horror, made worse by the ordinariness of the setting.

Themes

• Social conformity and violence: The poem examines how communities punish those who do not fit. The death of the outsider is the ultimate form of social control.
• Respectability and cruelty: The community considers itself respectable. But its respectability depends on the exclusion or elimination of those who threaten it.
• Moral complicity: By presenting the death as “as it should be,” the community implicates itself. The poem asks the reader to question this complicity.
• The outsider: A recurring Mahon theme. His poetry repeatedly returns to those who are excluded, forgotten, or left behind by mainstream society.

Pitfalls

• Missing the irony: The title is not Mahon’s own view. It is the community’s view, and the poem critiques it. If you take the title at face value, you miss the point.
• Being too vague: Discuss specific images and lines. Do not write generally about “society” without grounding your analysis in the poem’s language.
• Not connecting to Mahon’s wider concerns: This poem’s interest in outsiders and the violence of respectability connects to “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford” and “Ecclesiastes.”

Rapid Revision Drills

• Why is the title ironic?
• How does Mahon use the landscape in this poem?
• What does the dead man represent?
• How does the poem critique the idea of social respectability?
• Compare Mahon’s treatment of the outsider in this poem with another Mahon poem on the prescribed list.

Conclusion

“As It Should Be” is a quietly devastating poem about the violence that lies beneath social respectability. For Leaving Certificate students, it demonstrates Mahon’s distinctive approach: controlled, ironic, morally searching, and deeply concerned with those who are excluded from mainstream society. It connects to other Mahon poems on the prescribed list and offers rich material for discussing irony, landscape, and the treatment of outsiders in his work.

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