Identify any motifs in "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" and label the importance of these motifs.

Well, I think that one of the most important motifs are the
flowers that are referred to at various stages of the story. It is important to consider the
overall effect on the villagers that the drowned man creates. At the beginning of the tale we are
given a rather bleak description of the village:

The village was
made up on only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers and which were
spread about on the end of a desertlike cape.

Everything confirms
the desolate and drab nature of the village. Yet, by the end of the tale, as they plan and carry
out Esteban's funeral, note how his appearance in their lives seems to have given them the
impetus they need to realise that they can do something to change their rather hopeless
situation, symbolised by the flowers they wish to plant:

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But they also knew that everything would be different from
then on... because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colours to make Esteban's
memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and
planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners
would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high
seas...

The flowers thus represent
perhaps the potential that the villagers within themselves find to change their situation and
transform their village from rather a bleak, foreboding place to a place renowned for its beauty,
vibrancy and colour. Of course, Marquez is gently poking fun at the villagers, and at all of us,
and our need to have a hero to give us that catalyst - for that potential for self-transformation
is within us all, Esteban or no Esteban.