"It didn’ make no sense. You don’t look for no sense when lightnin’ kills a cow, or it comes up a flood. That’s jus’ the way things is. But when a bunch of men take an’ lock you up four years, it ought to have some meaning."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. Tom Joad didn’t learn any lessons from his four years in prison for killing a man in self-defense. He can see no sense or meaning in serving time. Steinbeck is criticizing the justice and prison system here.