Class Inequality
The poem subtly contrasts the speaker's socioeconomic reality with that of the Beverly residents by using comparative and superlative language. For example, in the second stanza, when Brooks writes that "Even the leaves fall down in lovelier patterns here," we might initially ask, "Lovelier than where?" But through context, we can surmise that the comparison being made is to the place where the speaker lives. The ambiguity of the language allows for the reader to contrast Beverly Hills, Chicago with any working-class neighborhood in the country. This solidifies the larger theme of class inequality.
Another domestic image that underscores class inequality between the speaker and the Beverly residents is that of tea time. The speaker mentions tea, but then clarifies that tea for Beverly residents doesn't mean "They will throw some little black dots into some water and add sugar and the juice of the cheapest lemons that are sold," which, implicitly, is what tea means for the speaker and their fellow passengers.
Relative Suffering
By the fourth stanza, Brooks begins to explore the idea of relative suffering, meaning that she considers the degrees to which a wealthy or otherwise privileged person can possibly feel the same suffering as those who do not have as much as them. She concedes, "Not that anybody is saying that these people have no trouble," but qualifies the concession with the idea that their trouble is a beautiful—ornate kind of trouble. In the fifth stanza, she uses a similar construction to compare mortalities across class: "Nobody is saying that these people do not ultimately cease to be," but "They make excellent corpses, among the expensive flowers." There is a degree of sarcasm in the tone of the poem that both refuses to fully indict the wealthy for their standard of living, but also admits to feeling bitterness towards people who have more simply from the lottery of birth that determines class, race, gender, ability, etc.
