Mark Twain’s Short Story, ‘The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm’

Installing a burglar alarm holds lots of laughter for Mark Twain in his short story on the topic. JennLShoots/Shutterstock

In a world of buying and adding accessories to our homes, we also want to keep them safe. But what if keeping them safer made us feel confused, anxious, and distressed instead?

Simplicity and humor can clarify our muddled lives and bring amusement into unfortunate situations. In his short story “The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm,” Mark Twain encourages a good laugh with his friend McWilliams’ story about his burglar alarm.

Through Mr. McWilliams’s experience with installing an alarm, Twain demonstrates that complexity is not always best idea.

A Burglar Alarm

While traveling together, Twain and McWilliams discuss the subject of burglar alarms. McWilliams gives a passionate opinion of them: He does not endorse them.

After finishing his house, McWilliams and his wife decided to buy a burglar alarm with some extra money. They happily paid $325 for their new alarm system; but their happiness didn’t last.

A month after they installed the alarm, McWilliams and his wife awoke to the smell of smoke. Worried, McWilliams headed downstairs to discover the source and found a burglar smoking a pipe.

“My friend,” McWilliams said, “we do not allow smoking in this room.” The burglar politely apologized, assuring McWilliams that, as a stranger, he did not know this house’s guidelines. Moreover, such conventions did not apply to burglars. McWilliams unwillingly conceded, adding that such disregard for manners showed the changing times.

McWilliams then asked, “What business have you to be entering this house in this furtive and clandestine way, without ringing the burglar alarm?” Embarrassed, the burglar assured McWilliams that, if he knew of the alarm, he would have set if off. However, he came through a second-story window, which was not alarmed.

A Complex Situation

After dealing with that burglar, McWilliams paid $300 more to alarm the second story. Yet, when another burglar broke in by climbing through a third-story window, McWilliams had to pay another $300 dollars to alarm the third-story.

With the whole house alarmed, the McWilliamses thought they would have peace. The cook quickly proved them wrong by setting off the kitchen door alarm every morning at 5 a.m.  With the alarm right above their heads, Mr. and Mrs. McWilliams were thrown awake. To fix this problem, the alarm expert installed a switch outside of the kitchen door to turn the alarm on and off.

However, the switch proved faulty, so the expert came and “fixed the thing so that opening the kitchen door would take off the alarm.” This contraption also proved faulty, and the burglars discovered that by opening the door, they could disarm the whole alarm.

Through his comical tale, Twain uses McWilliams’s unfortunate situation to highlight the confusion and distress complexity can bring. He shows, just as Herbert A. Simon says in “The Sciences of the Artificial”: “Human beings ... are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.” Too much complexity in life produces undue complexity in ourselves.

Yet, rather than blaming McWilliams, Twain soothes the seriousness of the situation with a comedic joy. The whole situation, though unfortunate, is incredibly funny and Twain encourages us to find joy even in our cluttered lives.

The world can be a complex place, but laughter can dissipate fear and solve most difficulties.

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