is there a such thing as over analyzing?

While doing our close reading on the end of chapter one in All the King's Men, me and Alexandra came across a passage talking about a cow's eyes staring waiting for someone to make a wrong move or fall into corruption. At first we didnt know what a cow could be symbolic for, then me, knowing all my bible stories remembered the parable of the golden calf. In the story, Moses is leading his people to the promise land but they start getting very cranky and impatient so they melt all their gold in a fire and when it is done melting it appears to be a golden cow. The people needed something to worship so they all begin praising this golden calf. Moses and God grow angry because these people should not be idolizing anything other than God himself. I thought that maybe the cow in All the Kings Men could have something to do with this parable, maybe the cow was meant to represent an idol. All the characters in the novel idolize power, which is what hurts them in the end. If they wouldve just focused on something else their endings may not have turned out the same. At first i felt super smart for thinking of such a relation, but then i realized...what if Warren didnt mean that at all? Could the meaning of a novel change because of  wrong analyzing? These are the things i ponder....