Food as Symbol in Margo's Got Money Troubles: Comfort, Transaction, and Identity

In Rufi Thorpe's Margo's Got Money Troubles, food is never just fuel. It appears in nearly every major turning point of Margo's life, from the donuts her mother buys after a pregnancy test to the bag of Runts that seals a business partnership. Across the novel, food shifts meaning as Margo's circumstances change: it begins as a source of comfort and maternal care, becomes a medium of economic exchange and self-presentation, and finally transforms into a tool for performance and identity construction. By tracing these recurrences, we can see how food encodes the novel's central concerns with economic survival, chosen family, and the blurry line between authentic self and performed persona.

Food as Comfort: The Donuts, the Arby's, and the Lasagna

Early in the novel, food is associated with emotional consolation and maternal attention. When Margo tells her mother Shyanne she is pregnant, Shyanne takes her out for donuts (Chapter Two). The gesture is small but significant: it is one of the few moments of uncomplicated care Shyanne offers, even as she later refuses to help with childcare. The donuts are a fleeting comfort, a sugary pause before the hard decisions ahead. They also establish a pattern—food as a way of smoothing over difficult conversations, a substitute for deeper support.

A more striking instance occurs after Margo signs the nondisclosure agreement with Mark's family. She drives to an Arby's drive-through and orders two Classic Beef 'n Cheddar sandwiches, eating them both in the car while Bodhi sleeps. The narrator (an older Margo looking back) recalls: "As the fat hit her bloodstream, she realized she was extremely happy." The food here is a reward for a degrading transaction, a way of reclaiming bodily pleasure after feeling "gross and degraded." It is also a private ritual—she eats alone, in her car, away from the legal office and the baby. The Arby's becomes a recurring touchstone; later, in a letter to JB, Margo admits she loves Arby's "if I am alone and sad, or alone and very happy." The fast-food chain becomes a shorthand for emotional extremes, a place where she can process feelings without performance.

Jinx's homemade lasagna offers a different kind of comfort. When Jinx moves in, he cooks a lasagna from scratch, rolling the pasta dough himself (Chapter Seven). Margo is surprised—she didn't know you could make pasta at home. The meal is an act of care and domesticity from a father who was absent for most of her life. It also signals a shift in their relationship: Jinx is not just a visitor but a participant in the household. The lasagna is communal, shared with Suzie, and it draws people together. Later, Jinx cooks a full Thanksgiving meal for Margo and Suzie (Chapter Ten), reinforcing his role as a provider of comfort and tradition. These meals contrast with the transactional food of the earlier chapters—they are given freely, without expectation of return.

Food as Transaction: The Lists, the Runts, and the Business Deal

As Margo's OnlyFans career develops, food becomes a medium of exchange. Her correspondence with JB, a paying fan, begins with a request for writing prompts. When she struggles to respond, she writes about food—her favorite candies, her love of chicken wings, her disdain for figs. The letter is a performance, but it is also a transaction: JB pays per email, and Margo is providing content. The food lists are a way to give something personal without revealing too much. She writes, "I realized I'd written him the truth, but I figured it didn't matter. It was only about food after all." The irony is that food is never just about food—it is a way of building intimacy, even when that intimacy is monetized.

The most explicit food-as-transaction moment comes at the end of the novel, when JB proposes a business partnership. They meet at an Arby's in Buena Park, and after agreeing to launch Ghost Ink, JB gives Margo a bag of Runts. The candy is a callback to her earlier letter, where she described Runts as "the Eternal Candy" because they can only be found in vending machines. The Runts are a token of their shared understanding, but they also seal a deal. The handshake and the candy together mark the beginning of a commercial relationship—one that is explicitly non-physical but deeply intimate in its exchange of ideas and data. Food here is a contract, a symbol of mutual investment.

Even earlier, food is used as a form of payment or bribery. WangMangler offers to promote Margo's OnlyFans for $500, and Margo sends the money via CashApp. The transaction is not food-related, but the language of hunger pervades her username, "HungryGhost," and her early content. The name itself, which comes from a poem Mark wrote, evokes a ghost that longs for food it can no longer eat. Margo reflects on this in Chapter Nineteen: "The longing for the food you could no longer eat. The memory of having a body." The hungry ghost becomes a metaphor for her own desire—for money, for fame, for connection—and food is the currency of that desire.

Food as Identity and Performance: The Food Pranks and the Heel Persona

As Margo develops her TikTok persona, food becomes a tool for performance. She writes scripts for "Ghost" as a heel character, and many of the skits involve food pranks. In one, Ghost feeds Rose and KC Popsicles made from frozen toothpaste; in another, she gives them apple slices rubbed with jalapeños. These pranks are deliberately cruel, and Margo draws inspiration from Tessa, the restaurant owner who once fed a salad boy potting soil and shaving cream. Margo reflects on the "undercurrent of real evil" in such acts, and she wants to harness that for her character. Food, which is normally associated with nourishment and care, is weaponized—turned into a source of harm. This inversion mirrors the way Margo's own body has been commodified and, at times, degraded.

The food pranks also connect to the theme of performance and authenticity. Margo is not actually poisoning anyone; she is creating a fictional persona. But the pranks blur the line between real and performed, just as wrestling does. Jinx explains that wrestling is "the blur between real and performed," and Margo applies that logic to her content. The food is a prop, but it also reveals something true about Margo's anger and her desire for control. In a world where she has been exploited—by Mark, by the legal system, by the demands of motherhood—the food pranks give her a way to be the one in charge, even if only on camera.

Food also marks identity in more subtle ways. At the Applebee's dinner with Kenny and Shyanne (Chapter Five), Margo's food choices become a site of tension. She wants nachos and wings; Shyanne pretends not to drink; Kenny orders iced tea for everyone. The meal is a performance of normalcy, with Shyanne projecting a phony personality to please her boyfriend. Margo notices the discrepancy—her mother worked at Hooters for six years but claims never to have been there. Food here is a marker of class and authenticity. Margo's love of Arby's and Hooters wings is a working-class preference, one she embraces even as she moves into more lucrative work. Her food choices are a way of staying grounded in who she is, even as her life becomes increasingly surreal.

Study Questions

1. How does the meaning of the Arby's sandwiches change from Chapter Five to Chapter Twenty-Seven?

In Chapter Five, the Arby's sandwiches are a private reward after Margo signs the NDA—a way to feel happy and grounded after a degrading transaction. By Chapter Twenty-Seven, Arby's is the site of her business meeting with JB, where she formalizes a partnership. The fast-food chain moves from a solitary comfort to a communal space for negotiation, reflecting Margo's growth from a passive recipient of deals to an active participant in her own economic future.

2. What role does food play in Margo's relationship with Jinx?

Jinx's cooking—the lasagna, the Thanksgiving meal, his later desire to "get really into making bread"—represents a form of care that Margo never received from her mother. Food becomes a way for Jinx to establish himself as a father figure, providing nourishment and stability. It also serves as a marker of his recovery: after his relapse, his talk of making bread signals hope and a return to domesticity. Food is thus a barometer of their relationship's health.

3. How do the food pranks in the TikTok skits connect to the novel's themes of performance and authenticity?

The pranks are deliberately fake—the toothpaste Popsicles, the jalapeño apples—yet they are designed to provoke real reactions. They blur the line between real harm and performed cruelty, much like wrestling does. Margo uses food to create a persona (Ghost) that is both exaggerated and rooted in her genuine anger. The pranks allow her to express aggression in a controlled, monetized way, highlighting the tension between her authentic self and the character she performs for an audience.

4. What does the bag of Runts symbolize in the final business deal with JB?

The Runts are a callback to Margo's earlier letter, where she described them as "the Eternal Candy" because they are rare and special. In the context of the partnership, they symbolize the unique, almost nostalgic connection between Margo and JB—a connection built on shared preferences and honest (if performed) communication. The candy also represents the sweetness of a deal that is not based on physical intimacy but on intellectual and commercial collaboration. It is a token of trust and mutual understanding, sealing a partnership that is both personal and professional.

Conclusion

Food in Margo's Got Money Troubles is a versatile symbol that evolves alongside Margo's journey. It begins as a source of comfort and maternal care, becomes a medium of economic exchange and self-presentation, and finally transforms into a tool for performance and identity construction. Through donuts, Arby's sandwiches, lasagna, food lists, and Runts, Thorpe uses food to explore themes of economic survival, chosen family, and the blurry line between authenticity and performance. Each meal, snack, or candy carries weight, revealing Margo's desires, fears, and strategies for navigating a world that often treats her body and her labor as commodities. By paying attention to what Margo eats—and how she uses food—readers gain a deeper understanding of her character and the novel's central concerns. For further exploration, see the themes of economic survival and the commodification of the body, performance and authenticity, and chosen family and parental absence.