Othering, as the basic political economy of identity construction, has been operative in human societies since ancient times, but it has been conceptually investigated only in recent times. Employing contrapuntal reading, the deconstructive strategy adapted by Edward Said from classic Western music, the present paper deals with the issue of identity politics in “Odysseus’s Tale of Trials” from Homer’s Odyssey to unravel the ideological subtext of this canonical romantic epic and give voice to the figures monsterized and suppressed by the hero and the narrative voice. It is argued that The Odyssey has significantly contributed to the construction of Western subjectivity, giving a sense of national or cultural identity to both ancient Greek people and modern Western man via setting them in opposition to their others. However, upon a contrapuntal reading, Odysseus is no different from the so-called savage, barbarous, villainous others he confronts in his quest and the identity constructed for both parties is merely a matter of convention and discursive power. Thus, the findings of this study challenge the commonsensical identity politics at work in Western culture, in the hope of paving the way for further critical readings of such classical texts and reevaluating their translations.
