The main theme of Fahrenheit 451 is censorship and the declining level of mass culture against the background of increasing government control over citizens. The novel was published in 1953, with its nuclear hysteria, Cold War, book burning by Nazis and Stalin’s “Great Purge” that horrified Bradbury. For him love for books means intellectualism and spirituality, education and enlightenment. Lack of these makes the world of Fahrenheit 451 so terrible and doomed, for hedonistic illiterate society had opposed itself to the whole world and lost the “quick war”.
This novel is also dedicated to self-reflection, evaluation of ones deeds from different points of view and natural human strive to knowledge. The image of phoenix that appears in different circumstances and thus have several interpretations the symbol of rebirth and, respectively, becomes a symbol of hope for humankind, a hope that man can learn on his mistakes.