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Global Economies
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Shoe Dog, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Throughout Shoe Dog, Knight has trouble balancing his home life with his work life. At first, Knight’s family life and his work life largely overlap—his wife, Peggy, works for him, so they see each other regularly. However, when Peggy gets pregnant and gives birth to the couple’s first son, Matthew, things get more complicated. Knight loves Peggy and Matthew, but he always finds himself forced to choose between spending time with them and spending time at Blue Ribbon. Ultimately, though Knight usually makes time for his family, Blue Ribbon comes first. As Matthew grows older, he starts to rebel against Knight, and Knight fears that Matthew’s behavior stems from resentment he feels toward Knight for spending too much time working on his company and not enough time at home. Although Knight and Matthew repair their relationship somewhat as Matthew grows older, it is always a struggle, and Knight cannot help but feel he has lost something he can never get back. Knight’s regret amplifies when Matthew tragically dies in a scuba-diving accident in 2004 at the age of 34. In the wake of Matthew’s death, Knight feels immense guilt and sadness that he didn’t spend more time with his son. Given the trajectory of Matthew’s life and Knight’s feelings about it, the memoir appears to argue for the importance of family above all else. As vital as Blue Ribbon was to Knight, he should have put his family first—a realization he unfortunately comes to too late in his life.
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Balancing Family and Work ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Balancing Family and Work appears in each chapter of Shoe Dog. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Balancing Family and Work Quotes in Shoe Dog
Below you will find the important quotes in Shoe Dog related to the theme of Balancing Family and Work.
2. 1962
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And its most sacred. Of course I wanted to taste other foods, hear other languages, dive into other cultures, but what I really craved was connection with a capital C. I wanted to experience what the Chinese call Tao, the Greeks call Logos, the Hindus call Jñāna, the Buddhists call Dharma. What the Christians call Spirit. Before setting out on my own personal life voyage, I thought, let me first understand the greater voyage of humankind. Let me explore the grandest temples and churches and shrines, the holiest rivers and mountaintops. Let me feel the presence of . . . God?
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9. 1969
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Days went swooshing by. I was trying to build a company and a marriage. Penny and I were learning to live together, learning to meld our personalities and idiosyncrasies, though we agreed that she was the one with all the personality and I was the idiosyncratic one. Therefore it was she who had more to learn.
For instance, she was learning that I spent a fair portion of each day lost in my own thoughts, tumbling down mental wormholes, trying to solve some problem or construct some plan. I often didn’t hear what she said, and if I did hear I didn’t remember it minutes later.
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She handed me my son. I cradled him in my arms. He was so alive, but so delicate, so helpless. The feeling was wondrous, different from all other feelings, though familiar, too. Please don’t let me drop him.
At Blue Ribbon I spent so much time talking about quality control, about craftsmanship, about delivery—but this, I realized, this was the real thing. “We made this,” I said to Penny. We. Made. This.
12. 1972
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I felt like a married man caught in a tawdry love triangle. I was assuring my lover, Nissho, that it was only a matter of time before I divorced my spouse, Onitsuka. Meanwhile, I was encouraging Onitsuka to think of me as a loving and devoted husband. “I do not like this way of doing business,” I wrote Sumeragi, “but I feel it was thrust upon us by a company with the worst possible intentions.” We’ll be together soon, darling. Just have patience.
