"It was dreadful. They tried to put the little redhead in a cage"
About this Quote
The sentence’s engine is the cage. Not “restriction,” not “control,” but a physical container, a cruelty you don’t need expertise to recognize. That choice signals her intent: to frame the situation as dehumanization rather than mere discipline. The subtext is about surveillance and capture - the way institutions (often the press, sometimes the family system around fame) treat a woman’s body and behavior as something to manage. “They tried” matters too: it implies a coordinated “they,” an impersonal force that feels both everywhere and unaccountable, exactly how public shaming works when it becomes a machine.
In context, Ferguson’s public life has been a crash course in how celebrity, monarchy-adjacent scrutiny, and gender expectations converge. The line reads like a protest against being curated into a compliant version of oneself. The dread isn’t just fear; it’s the recognition that the cage is built from optics, and it can be sold as “for your own good.”
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ferguson, Sarah. (2026, January 16). It was dreadful. They tried to put the little redhead in a cage. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-was-dreadful-they-tried-to-put-the-little-130445/
Chicago Style
Ferguson, Sarah. "It was dreadful. They tried to put the little redhead in a cage." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-was-dreadful-they-tried-to-put-the-little-130445/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It was dreadful. They tried to put the little redhead in a cage." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-was-dreadful-they-tried-to-put-the-little-130445/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.


