How can the cyclops in The Odyssey be a metaphor for life?

Polyphemus, "The Cyclops," was a bad guy in Homer's Odyssey, who was blinded by Odysseus' cleverness. However, in the broader literature of Greek mythology, one discovers that the Cyclops symbolized a paradoxical observation about some members of the human race. The Cyclopes live in a fertile land, but do not know anything about agriculture. Each one lives roughly and independently, and there is no social organization or justice. Being one-eyed is a metaphor for being confined to a narrow point of view. And when the Cyclops is blinded by Odysseus' trickery, he is in effect, blinded by his own greed and subsequent rage.