As in All Quiet on the Western Front and The Road Back, Remarque uses a simple, direct story line, but in developing the plot of Arch of Triumph he uses the third person point-of-view and focuses upon Ravic and Joan instead of a group of characters. The doomed love affai r between Ravic and Joan mirrors a wider sense of doom as evident in Kate Hegstroem's cancer, Aaron Goldberg's suicide, and the Hotel International's Jewish, Polish, and Russian refugees. In addition, Haake's frequent trips to Paris symbolize the inevitable approach of World War II and the Nazi occupation of Paris. The novel ends on a doomsday note as Paris' once bright lights go off and Ravic and the other refugees are trucked off to concentration camps; "There was no light anywhere ... It was so dark that one could not even see the Arc de Triomphe."