Right away Connie isn’t physically fit enough to take on the role of a survivalist in the way Innocente would have been able to in her naming ceremony, suggesting that Connie would always be the ecological other based on her body alone. 
This reliance on the environment and the physical body is important to consider when thinking about who is the ecological other. 
 Connie, by merit of having been checked into the mental institution and how she becomes a part of the mind control experiment experiment, is a threat to society, and doesn’t have control over her own body. When she escapes to the utopia, her experiences distance her from the environment where her urban background makes her akin to pollution and places her in an uncomfortable position. Both treatments of Connie’s body oppress her, causing her to be physically unable to take part in anything outside of the mental institution. 
Connie’s body is not the only thing keeping her from succeeding in the wilderness as she struggles against her literal environment. 
 The patch of woods and its symbolic function of escaping from being exposed requires Connie to pass through polluted water and the road, both items that signal the urban spreading into rural, wild places. The road encourages pollution as Connie inhales toxins released by passing cars, but also a sense of insecurity as she is concerned the mental institution will find and catch her at any moment. Surviving in this instance requires Connie to not only use her broken body in a harsh environment, but also how to actually experience the wilderness instead of mentally projecting into it like she had to reach Mattapoisett. 
This kind of survivalist experience was not one that would have been talked about during the 1970s where the back-to-nature experience was highly controlled in its depictions. 
The Camp Fire Girls and other groups like then were only temporary parts of nature, where they could move freely from urban to rural and back again if there were problems, such as physical injury or bad weather. This entire experience for Connie reveals the reality about the environment that both her time and the utopia covered up; the environment is inherently othering to those who do not have the privilege to experience it in its pristine, non-polluted form. While Connie is ecologically othered by Mattapoisett’s representation of the Ecological Indian, it isn’t as bad because of how pristine the wilderness is. It is when Connie’s survival in her own wilderness becomes life or death, where if she fails she either dies alone in the wild or is subjected to mind control, that being the ecological other is bad. 
Unlike Innocente’s naming ceremony where she can’t ask for help, Connie summons Luciente to assist her when Connie’s own survival skills fall short. 
Her exclamation, although dramatic, is a truthful statement about this ecologically othering experience Connie is forced to sustain as she tries to gain her freedom. 
 This response from Lucietne is unexpected in a number of ways, as it takes Connie’s urgency and turns it to nonchalance, while gamifying the life and death experience Connie is facing. It ignores how Connie would probably never place herself in this situation if her freedom wasn’t being actively threatened, as well as the immediate danger Connie is in because she was forced do so anyways. 
