Claudio
He is a young Count from Florence, he is friend of Benedick and he will be the boyfriend of Hero. He falls in love with her the first time he saw her, although at that encounter she doesn’t speak a word. Along the play, he demonstrates a childish atitude towards the world, not only because of his actions but also because of his behaviour towards others.
Following the three Ewen’s axes, regarding to complexity of the character, I think that this is not something of extremes. In my opinion, we are not in front of a simple character, neither a complex one. So, comparing it with Beatrice and Hero for example, he would be in the middle. Beatrice is obviously much more complex than Claudio, and Hero is much simple than Claudio. Apart from his childish behaviour, he also shows that he has an impulsive personality and reacts with furious. His passionate feelings and enthusiams he shows, make him not that simple as Hero, although his inmaturity gives him away.
So, he could say that he suffers a kind of development along the play, because he is supposed to have learn something but actually we don’t have any clue of that. It’s not very clear his development as a character. And, in respects of pennetration into inner life, I think we observe his personality well enough, there isn’t anything he is hidding or something we can’t achieve from him.
Then, seeing him from Freud’s theories, I think that many of his acts can be seen overcoat that they are done from the id. For example we can analize the moment when he is asked to see the suposed infidelity of his future wife. He reacts with the instinct when he gets angry and then when he jilts her in the wedding, and tells everybody what he have seen the day before, that she have been unfaithful to him. This is a reaction that emerges from the inside of himself, he is angry and he shows it with no resctrictions.
But then, when he apologizes to Leonato’s, the father of Hero, because she has been killed, he demonstrates once again his inmaturity. He just says, “oh sorry, but in fact, it wasn’t my fault at all” and then he accepts to marry his other daughter, without knowing her,because he will do anything just to achieve Leonato’s forgiveness. Maybe this could be identified with the superego, talking about the morality principle, what people would think that is well-done or judging what it is not. So in order to gain Leonato’s forgiveness and everyone’s respect he would do whatever necessary.