Near the end of the novel, Bradbury compares man to the phoenix. How is man similar to this mythical bird and how might this provide future hope?

At the end of the novel, Granger tells the dissident group, after the city is destructed by bombs, about a mythical bird, called Phoenix. The special feature of this animal is that it's immortal.It is reincarnated from his own ashes, after burning itself.This could be compared to the human attitude of destroying other civilisations, but in fact we are only fighting ourselves. For example, the two world wars. Germany was nearly ruined, but if you look at it today, you have to recognize that it is some kind of reborn, reborn from it's own ashes.

The "German Reich" can be seen as an example for all human empires, which have raised and fall one time, like the Phoenix. In Fahrenheit 451 the city is no exception and the dissident group wants to build up a new society out of the ruins of the old one. So you can say, that also in this case the circular flow of the Phoenix is not interrupted.

Bradbury's hopes for the future maybe are that humanity stops burning itself by reflecting and thinking about what consequence our acts might have. This is maybe the key to prevent us from further wars. This way the circular flow of the Phoenix would be interrupted, but humanity won't loose it's immortality.