Answer:
The theme of the story is that intelligence is more effective than money in protecting people.
Step-by-step explanation:
"McWilliamses and the burglar alarm" is a short story written by Mark Twain. In this story we know the McWilliams family who spent lots of money buying burglar alarms for the house where they live, but thieves keep entering the house frequently, which shows that the alarms are completely ineffective. When the family complains to the company that makes the burglar alarms, the company says they need a better and more expensive alarm, which also doesn't stop thieves from breaking into the house.
Given this, Mark Twain shows that the McWilliams family could not see that they were being deceived by the producer of the burglar alarms. This lack of family intelligence prevented them from realizing this and for that reason, they believed that money was needed to protect them, when intelligence was even more essential in this case. Thus, we can conclude that the theme of this story is that intelligence is more important than money to protect a person and their family.
It is important to emphasize that the theme of a story refers to the message that the author wants to promote through the text.