You Wouldn't Like the Chaplain When He's Angry

""Then you signed your name in somebody else's handwriting again," the colonel retorted with a shrug. "That's all that means."

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" the chaplain shouted, suddenly losing all patience. He jumped to his feet in a blazing fury, both fists clenched. "I'm not going to stand for this any longer! Do you hear? twelve men were just killed and I have no time for these silly questions. You've no right to keep me here, and I'm not going to stand for it."

In the above passage, the chaplain, a man who is accused and convicted of being guilty of the commission of crimes and infractions they do not know about yet, is pushed to the point where he can no longer take it. After having to endure several trivial questions followed by even more irrelevant pestering, the chaplain has a catharsis, or a release of emotion. The power system in the military is so corrupt that they are out to convict anyone and everyone with every offense possible. At the same time, they are given so much power that they can get away with doing so. Joseph Heller intended it to be this way within the book to satirize the power system and authoritative structure in the military. The round-about way that they interrogate the chaplain, as well as others earlier in the story, evokes amazement in the reader at just how rediculous the authorities in the military are. It gets to the point that their stupidity and lack of common sense almost serve as a source of comic relief.