Love's Labor's Lost: Situational Irony 1 key example

Berowne is well-read enough to know that no one in Love’s Labor’s Lost has achieved a fairy-tale ending. He comments that their “wooing” has not ended like an old play, because the men do not have their brides. He also jokes that the women have made their efforts into a "comedy."

Berowne’s comments themselves are ironic, in that a character in a play is remarking upon the structure of the play itself (some critics would call this “meta-commentary” or a “meta-theatrical” statement). Shakespeare uses Berowne to gesture directly toward the structure and aims of Love’s Labor’s Lost.

Over and over again, Love’s Labor’s Lost undercuts audience and character expectations around courtship and love. Berowne and the other noblemen expected the women to be easily duped by their Russian ploy and easily captured by their love poetry. In turn, the Frenchwomen expected a lack of sincerity and commitment from their Spanish suitors. In a final, unexpected reversal, an unforeseen event (the death of the king) has pulled the women and men away from one another just as their courting was becoming serious. 

However, genuine, honest conversation between the noblemen and the French women only begins in the wake of the ladies' departure. The men and women in the play only come to a compromise around love (that they will all marry after a year) when all of their expectations are stripped away. Berowne’s remarks here help point to the statement Shakespeare’s play is making by eschewing a traditional ending.