'Rhetorical Analysis Of Shoe Dog' By Phil Knight

Nike, one of the biggest sports brands in the world, brings in a little over $30 million annually. The company was started by Phil Knight, who, in his self-written memoir “Shoe Dog”) talks about the start of the company that much of the world knows today. Using unique dictation, creative style, and rhetoric devices, he opens up about his true tone and feelings toward the worldwide company Nike. Throughout the book, Knight expresses three main tones including joyfulness, seriousness, and the final tone of disappointment. All three of these tones can be clearly identified by the reader due to many stylistic changes in the way the book is written. The first tone expressed in the memoir really came across during the writing of Knight’s early, and late years. With the memoir opening up a twenty-three-year-old man whose dream was to not only be faster, quicker, and more agile, but for the world to be as well. He starts off being extremely happy and excited about potentially starting his own company. This shows in the way the book

This tone appeared when Knight was talking about the numbers and statistics of his company. The book was organized very differently in this section as Knight would explain an aspect of his company and then give the numbers and statistics of that aspect. For example, “The company, my company, born from the nothing, and now finishing 1971 with sales of $1.3 million, on life support… I knew, one of whom mentioned that Bank of California had a charter allowing it to do business in three western states including Oregon.” Knight talks about how the company was doing and then explains some statistics and how to fix them. Knight also uses rhetoric devices such as metaphor when he describes his company as a china shop and the market as a bull ready to destroy it. This definitely makes the reader see how serious and businesslike Knight had become as his company began to grow and