“These little things make all the great difference.” (91)

The poet Robert Frost wrote in “The Road Not Taken”:
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” (lines 18-20)

Marlow learns this firsthand as he discovers that small, mundane things around him are important, so important that their importance is only truly felt after they are gone. While it may not be apparent the impact they make, much like Frost’s speaker not knowing how important his choice of road is, it is only later in time that the impact is felt. Marlow realizes this when he discovers that without light, darkness is all-consuming – never having realized this before, since light had always been all around him. This plays on the central conflict of Conrad's novella: the timeless struggle between light and darkness.

Source:

"The Road Not Taken." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Web. 24 Aug. 2009. http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717.