Social Darwinism discourse in the USA fiction at the turn of the 19–20 _th centuries

This paper presents an attempt to analyze the relationship between social Darwinism ideology and American literature at the turn of the 19–20^th centuries. According to philologists, critical realism was customary of that period in literature. The famous authors nowadays such as Theodore Dreiser and Jack London or less well-known, for example, Edward Bellamy and Robert Herrick, presented their plots against the same intellectual background and described them using similar expressions and clichés. Such expressions as «struggle for existence», «natural selection», «survival of the fittest» became the usual ones in American public life at the turn of the 19–20^th centuries. Social Darwinism rhetoric united the worlds of politics, science and literature. The language determines our ideas about what can be right or wrong, fair and unfair. Ideology and the language played a fundamental role in shaping behavior in the context of the «American dream» especially. The «American dream» contained an idea of equality of opportunities for individuals, provided that they have talent and diligence. The author analyzes the language used in American literature and the influence of social Darwinism ideology on public consciousness. This discourse reveals the essence of social problems and attitudes of the American society in that historical period.