How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
One night when the jail was lonely, Tito Ralph came into Danny's cell bearing two bottles of wine. An hour later he went out for more wine, and Danny went with him [...] After that Danny went up among the pines and fell asleep, while Tito Ralph staggered back and reported his escape. (1.9)
Hmm… we think we're starting to see where Danny's respect for the law comes from. Tito Ralph, the jailer, sees the inmates as his friends and potential drinking buddies and even takes Danny out for a drink when they get bored. This loosey-goosey jailkeeping shows that jail time is not such a big deal in Tortilla Flat. Tito Ralph reports Danny's escape, but it's almost like a joke: it's his own drunkenness that made it possible for Danny to escape. Hey, if you're Danny, what's not to respect?
Quote #5
The fact that he was Big Joe Portagee, with a decent training in the Monterey jail, not only saved him the misery of patriotism thwarted, but solidified his conviction that as a man's days are rightly devoted half to sleeping and half to waking, so a man's years are rightly spent half in jail and half out. Of the duration of the war, Joe Portagee spent considerably more time in jail than out. (8.1)
The narrator is giving jail and the army the same treatment here. First of all, the narrator says that Big Joe got his "training" in the jail, which really just means that he spent a lot of time there. If going to jail is training for the army, then we can see where the narrator is going with his description of army life. Big Joe compares jail to sleeping, and we can see that the characters who go there do so to rest more than to be punished.
Quote #6
In civilian life one is punished for things one does; but army codes add a new principle to this—they punish a man for things he does not do. (8.2)
This quote is referring to all the things that Joe was punished for not doing in the army, like shaving or saluting; it shows that the discipline of military life was way too much for Big Joe. He's used to being punished for causing trouble in Monterey, but he's definitely not used to having anything required of him. Joe's reaction to responsibility is pretty much just to shirk it, even if that means going to jail.