Beverly Hills, Chicago

Beverly Hills, Chicago Summary and Analysis of Stanza 8

Summary

In the final stanza, the speaker and their passengers are leaving Beverly. They arrive at an unspoken conclusion that they "have not enough," though they claim not to wish less upon the residents of Beverly Hills, Chicago.

Analysis

The final instance of the phrase "it is only natural" occurs in this final stanza, and precedes its most general usage yet: the claim that "it is only natural that we should think we have not enough." The language finally arrives at the conclusion that the wealth gap between affluent whites and working-class Black people is unnatural and makes no logical sense. How can some people live in leisure and never work while others make their living "in the sweatingest physical manner," and the latter enjoy so fewer privileges?

The repetition of the phrase "We drive on" leaves the reader with the impression that this drive is a ritual. The speaker habitually drives through Beverly and pines for the fine things they have there, the golden gardens and neat refuse. The final line communicates the unspoken admission that the speaker and their passengers are, in fact, resentful of the excesses they find in Beverly, but that their resentment remains unspoken, even between them.