Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo as Id, Ego, and Superego: A Psychoanalytic Reading of the Mind Through Italian Comedy

Abstract

This article proposes a psychoanalytic reading of the Italian comic trio Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo through the structural model of the psyche developed by Sigmund Freud in his second topography (1923). The three characters are interpreted as archetypal representations of the psychic agencies of the Id, Superego, and Ego, offering a clinically informed and accessible framework for understanding intrapsychic conflict, defense mechanisms, and the reality principle. In support of this reading, the sketch Poker, from the theatrical show Anplagghed (Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo, 1999), is analyzed in detail as an exemplary clinical-narrative case of the conflict between the three psychic agencies. The article integrates references to classical and contemporary psychoanalytic literature, including contributions from Anna Freud (1936), McWilliams (2011), Kernberg (1976), and Solms (2021).

1. Introduction

Psychology possesses numerous conceptual tools for understanding human mental life. Among these, the structural model developed by Sigmund Freud in The Ego and the Id (1923) remains one of the most influential theoretical frameworks in the history of psychology and psychiatry. The so-called Freudian second topography — which divides the psyche into three agencies, the Id, Ego, and Superego — continues to orient psychodynamic clinical practice and to stimulate theoretical debate in contemporary affective neuroscience (Solms, 2021).

This article proposes to use the Italian comic trio Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo as a heuristic tool for illustrating the Freudian model in an accessible and scientifically informed manner. In particular, the sketch Poker, from the theatrical show Anplagghed (1999), is analyzed as an exemplary narrative case in which the three Freudian psychic agencies are observable with extraordinary clarity. Far from representing a superficial popularization, this reading aims to highlight the explanatory power of the second topography by applying it to culturally recognizable characters who effectively embody the dynamics of intrapsychic conflict.

As Freud himself observed, psychoanalysis finds confirmation in the most unexpected places of human culture — in literature, art, and humor (Freud, 1905/1963). Comedy, in particular, represents for Freud a privileged elaboration of tensions between psychic agencies: a socially acceptable way of giving expression to the Id's impulses while maintaining the control of the Ego and Superego.

2. Freud's Second Topography: Theoretical Context

Before proceeding with the character analysis, it is necessary to contextualize the Freudian model within its historical development. Freud had previously elaborated a first topography based on the distinction between the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious (Freud, 1900/1953). However, in 1923, he recognized the limitations of this schema and proposed a new structural articulation of the mind.

In the second topography, the psyche is described through three functionally distinct but dynamically interacting agencies:

The Id (German: das Es) represents the drive pole of the psyche. Freud (1923/1960) described it as a cauldron of seething excitations — a chaotic and primitive reality that knows no time, logic, morality, or negation. The Id is entirely unconscious and functions according to the pleasure principle: it seeks immediate discharge of drive tension, regardless of consequences.

The Superego (German: das Über-Ich) emerges as a precipitate of early identifications with parental figures and internalized social norms. Freud (1923/1960) distinguished two internal components: the moral conscience, which performs a critical and punishing function, and the ego ideal, which projects an image of what one ought to be. The Superego may be as severe as the actual parent was — or as severe as the child perceived them to be.

The Ego (German: das Ich) is the mediating agency par excellence. It emerges from the Id through contact with external reality and functions according to the reality principle. Its primary function is to find a compromise between the drive demands of the Id, the moral requirements of the Superego, and the constraints imposed by the external world. Freud (1923/1960) employed the famous metaphor of the rider and the horse: the Ego seeks to direct the Id's drive energy, but often ends up following its direction while pretending to lead.

It is important to emphasize that these three agencies should not be understood as separate or anatomically localizable entities, but as psychic functions that overlap and interact dynamically (McWilliams, 2011). The distinction is analytical, not ontological.

3. Aldo as the Id: The Pleasure Principle in Action

The character of Aldo Baglio embodies with extraordinary effectiveness the characteristics of the Freudian Id. His comedy is systematically based on impulsivity, the pursuit of immediate pleasure, the inability to defer gratification, and the tendency to ignore the consequences of one's actions.

On a theoretical level, this corresponds to what Freud (1923/1960) described as the primary functioning of the psyche: a process that knows no inhibitions, tolerates no frustration, and tends toward the immediate discharge of excitation. The Id's thinking is dominated by what Freud called the primary process — free associations, condensations, displacements — in sharp opposition to the logical and sequential secondary process thinking characteristic of the Ego.

In the sketch Poker (Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo, 1999), this dynamic is observable in a particularly transparent form. Aldo deals himself six cards, justifying it because he is the dealer; he takes from the communal pot without respecting the agreed rules; he declares himself a kleptomaniac and even produces a medical certificate — which he has himself stolen — and refuses to answer the telephone because he is at home and does what he wants. Every action is an immediate discharge of impulse, devoid of reflective mediation. Aldo does not process: he acts. He does not reflect: he reacts (Kernberg, 1976).

From a clinical standpoint, the prevalence of the Id in personality structure is associated with difficulties in impulse control, low frustration tolerance, and a tendency toward acting out — that is, the behavioral discharge of emotional tensions that cannot be mentalized (Kernberg, 1976). This makes him comic on stage, but illuminating as a model for understanding the logic of drive functioning.

The predominant defense mechanism of Aldo's character is denial — one of the most primitive defenses described by Anna Freud (1936). Denial allows the Ego to disavow aspects of reality that would be a source of anxiety or conflict, maintaining the possibility of acting as if the problem did not exist. Aldo does not deny that he is stealing: he redefines it as a clinically certified behavior, stripping it of any moral valence.

4. Giovanni as the Superego: The Voice of Internalized Morality

Giovanni Storti represents the embodiment of the Superego in its most recognizable form. His character is marked by moral rigidity, concern for social norms, a tendency toward judgment and criticism, and a pronounced sense of guilt — both toward others and toward himself.

In the sketch Poker (Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo, 1999), Giovanni is constantly engaged in reminding others of the rules of the game, protesting against Aldo's infractions, and demanding order and fairness. He has a norm for every situation — even for the way in which the deck of cards must be cut — and he cannot tolerate their transgression. His indignation is continuous; his voice is that of the internal judge who knows no rest. When Aldo steals, Giovanni does not merely note it: he condemns, denounces, and publicly reprimands.

Freud (1923/1960) described the Superego as an agency that can become extremely severe, at times persecutory. An overactive Superego — such as the one embodied by Giovanni's character — is clinically associated with paralyzing perfectionism, chronic guilt, defensive rigidity, and difficulty tolerating imperfection in oneself and others (McWilliams, 2011).

It is worth noting, from a developmental perspective, that the Superego is not present at birth but is progressively constructed through the identification process. As Fonagy and colleagues (2002) observe, the child's capacity to internalize norms and expectations is closely linked to the quality of the attachment relationship and to the caregiver's capacity to serve as an emotional regulator. An excessively severe Superego may be the product of rigid and punitive parenting, or of a child who overestimated the severity of their actual parents.

The characteristic defense mechanism of Giovanni's character is reaction formation: the tendency to exhibit an attitude opposed to an unacceptable unconscious impulse. Condemning in others what one does not permit oneself to desire is one of the most classical manifestations of this defense (A. Freud, 1936). It is no coincidence that Giovanni, the most moralistic of the trio, is also the one who plays with the greatest intensity — and who ultimately proves no less caught up than the others in the chaotic escalation of the game.

5. Giacomo as the Ego: The Silent Mediator

Giacomo Poretti is perhaps the most complex character from a psychoanalytic standpoint. His comedy is made of silences, glances, and resignation. He observes, endures, and attempts — rarely with success — to mediate between Aldo's chaos and Giovanni's rigidity.

In the sketch Poker (Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo, 1999), Giacomo is the character who endures the situation more than he drives it. While Aldo breaks the rules and Giovanni invokes them, Giacomo tries to maintain the thread of the game, to find a workable path between the two extreme positions. His most emblematic line — "come on, guys" — is the voice of an Ego that cannot impose itself but keeps trying, aware of the irresolvability of the conflict. His exhaustion is not accidental: it is structural.

This corresponds precisely to the position of the Freudian Ego: an agency that, as Freud (1923/1960) wrote, serves three severe masters — the Id, the Superego, and external reality — and strives to find a point of equilibrium between incompatible demands. The Ego is often described as an exhausted mediator, perpetually at risk of being overwhelmed.

In contemporary psychodynamic literature, this function is associated with the concept of mentalization capacity elaborated by Fonagy and colleagues (2002): the capacity to think about one's own and others' mental states, to contain impulsivity, and to find adaptive responses to situations of conflict. Giacomo mentalizes — but not enough to succeed in containing the system.

The predominant defense mechanism of Giacomo's character is repression — the foundational mechanism of psychoanalysis, which Freud (1915/1957) considered the cornerstone of the entire theoretical edifice. Repression consists of keeping psychic contents that would be a source of anxiety or conflict away from consciousness. Giacomo does not confront: he forgets. He does not protest: he falls silent. And when the situation becomes unbearable, he retreats into a silence that is the only form of equilibrium he can find.

6. Intrapsychic Conflict as a Universal Condition: Analysis of the Poker Sketch

Reading the trio through the Freudian second topography offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on a fundamental point: the conflict between the Id, Ego, and Superego is not a pathological phenomenon, but a structural condition of human existence.

The sketch Poker (Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo, 1999) offers a particularly rich representation of this conflict. The scene unfolds around a card table — a circumscribed space with defined rules, which should normally guarantee order and predictability. Yet the attempt to maintain structure fails systematically, because the three psychic agencies embodied by the characters are intrinsically incompatible.

Aldo's Id does not recognize the rules of the game unless they are in his favor. Giovanni's Superego invokes them continuously, but his rigidity paradoxically produces more chaos than order — because no rule can truly contain the system. Giacomo's Ego attempts mediation, but is structurally outnumbered and outmatched in emotional intensity. The result is an escalation that culminates in an absurd finale — where players wager an eye of Tutankhamun, a gold crown once belonging to Dracula, and Munch's The Scream — which is simultaneously comic and clinically significant: when the conflict between psychic agencies finds no resolution, thinking tends toward the primary process, toward the absurd, toward decontextualization.

As McWilliams (2011) emphasizes, psychological health does not consist in the absence of intrapsychic conflict, but in the Ego's capacity to manage it flexibly and adaptively. A strong Ego is not an Ego free of tensions: it is an Ego capable of tolerating them without systematically resorting to primitive or rigid defenses. Giacomo tries — and the fact that the trio ultimately agrees to meet the following Thursday again suggests that, despite everything, the Ego manages at least to guarantee the continuity of the bond.

Contemporary affective neuroscience has offered an interesting contribution to this debate. Jaak Panksepp (1998) identified seven primary emotional systems in the mammalian brain, some of which show a surprising correspondence with the Freudian distinction between the Id and the Ego. Mark Solms (2021), in a particularly influential work, attempted to reconcile Freudian metapsychology with modern neuroscience, suggesting that the distinction between primary and secondary processes may have a neurobiological basis.

These developments suggest that, while not empirically verifiable in the strict sense, the Freudian second topography captures something real about the structure of the human mind — something that neuroscientific research is progressively illuminating.

7. Clinical and Educational Implications

The use of cultural examples such as Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo in psychological and psychotherapeutic training is not merely decorative. Narrative and metaphorical tools have a long tradition in the teaching of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy.

From a didactic standpoint, the analysis of the sketch Poker offers an immediate point of access to concepts that may appear abstract in their original theoretical formulation. The poker game scene renders visible in just a few minutes what Freud had spent decades theorizing: the coexistence of three incompatible psychic logics, their failing negotiation, and the paradoxical maintenance of the bond despite the conflict. This is particularly relevant for students new to psychoanalytic literature, as well as for practitioners seeking creative ways to present these models to their patients.

From a clinical standpoint, understanding which agency tends to prevail in a patient's functioning — whether the impulsivity of the Id, the rigidity of the Superego, or the defensive strategies of a struggling Ego — can significantly orient the diagnostic formulation and treatment plan (Kernberg, 1976; McWilliams, 2011).

Psychodynamic diagnosis, as elaborated by McWilliams (2011), pays particular attention to character organization and predominant defense mechanisms — precisely the dimensions we have explored through the three characters. This perspective allows practitioners to move beyond categorical DSM diagnoses, capturing the specificity of individual psychic functioning.

8.

Conclusions

The analysis of Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo — and in particular of the sketch Poker from Anplagghed (1999) — through the Freudian second topography demonstrates how conceptual tools elaborated over a century ago retain an extraordinary capacity to illuminate the complexity of human mental life. The Id, Ego, and Superego are not theoretical abstractions: they are the voices that inhabit each of our minds, in perpetual negotiation.

The Italian comic trio, with its capacity to bring to light the universal tensions of human existence through the register of humor, proves to be an effective heuristic tool for approaching these concepts in an accessible and clinically informed way. The poker game — with its broken rules, its absurd stakes, its irreducible players — is a faithful mirror of the intrapsychic conflict that Freud had intuited while observing his patients on the couch.

As Freud (1905/1963) wrote in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, humor is the most elaborated of psychic processes: it requires the cooperation of all three agencies to transform pain into laughter. In this sense, Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo do not simply make us laugh: they show us, in the most human way possible, how our mind works. And they remind us that every Thursday evening, around a card table or elsewhere, we are all — inevitably — Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo.

Bibliographic References

Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo. (1999). Poker [Theatrical sketch]. In Anplagghed. Directed by Arturo Brachetti. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k48QfWhx_Pg

Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E. L., & Target, M. (2002). Affect regulation, mentalization and the development of the self. Other Press.

Freud, A. (1936). Das Ich und die Abwehrmechanismen [The ego and the mechanisms of defence]. Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag.

Freud, S. (1953). The interpretation of dreams (J. Strachey, Trans.). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1900)

Freud, S. (1957). Repression. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 141–158). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1915)

Freud, S. (1960). The ego and the id (J. Riviere, Trans.; J. Strachey, Ed.). W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1923)

Freud, S. (1963). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious (J. Strachey, Trans.). W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1905)

Kernberg, O. F. (1976). Object relations theory and clinical psychoanalysis. Jason Aronson.

McWilliams, N. (2011). Psychoanalytic diagnosis: Understanding personality structure in the clinical process (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. Oxford University Press.

Solms, M. (2021). The hidden spring: A journey to the source of consciousness. W. W. Norton & Company.