I'm not sure if the text "Seventeen Syllables" by Hisaye Yamamoto follows a typical romance narrative or not but I think it does contain a lot of questions of romantic love. The narrator's mother seemed to almost wish to be saved by being married to a man and made me think it was kind of like a happily ever after story gone wrong. She married her husband because to prevent herself from committing suicide and not because of true love. She ruins the image of love for her daughter by telling her to never get married and almost instills a fear in her of ever falling in love. Her passion for the haiku is very romantic and the strong reaction of her husband destroying her prize too. This text is an example of why most marriages where people marry for other reasons than love don't normally work out. In contrast, the second text "Men in Your LIfe" by Alice Childress definitely has more romantic characteristics. The narrator marries the man Eddie despite the fact that he is poor and has a list of specific characteristics that she loves about him. She marries him because it feels like love, not to escape a problem which seems more romantic.