Ten Commandments In Romeo And Juliet

The Ten Commandments is an important aspect of the religion motif that plays a big part in character development and audience sympathy with characters through the play. One of the most well known commandments is the fifth one that says thou shall not kill. Murder is considered by pretty much everyone to be the worst crime of all time and is a serious mortal sin. Romeo actually kills two people in this play as evident in, “[They fight, Tybalt/Paris falls]” (3,1,125) (5,3,71). This should make the audience really despise Romeo along with the rest of the characters in the play, but this really is not the case. As a matter of fact, these actions make Romeo more appealing as a character and are important to the overall theme of the play. Romeo kills Paris because he stands in Romeo’s way of getting to Juliet, and being Juliet is the only true love his life he will stop at nothing for her. Even though Romeo murders Tybalt the audience is still able to sympathize with him because it was

The seventh commandment says you should not steal and the ninth commandment says that you should not covet your neighbors wife. In the one exchange between Juliet and Paris, Paris acts really cocky and absolutely certain that he will have Juliet’s love and her as a wife, as shown in, “Happily met my lady and my wife,” (4, 1, 18) and “So will he, I am sure, that you love me.” (4,1, 26). Without him knowing, he is going to steal Romeo’s wife for himself and already calls Juliet his wife before they even get married. No this breaking of the commandments is not quite as bad as Paris did not know, but he is basically ignoring Juliet’s feeling and revealing a part of himself that we did not see or expect until now. Instances like these demonstrate how this motif can develop characters in a negative way as