Though his younger son has made such a bad choice, the father's surprising decision to go ahead and give out his property creates a sense of astonishment about his outrageous mercy and love towards the younger son. After the younger son has the property, he "left the country for a distant land and spent everything, and there he squandered his substance in riotous living " (Luke 15). This is an excellent imagery that paints a picture of a very bad son who would "squander " all the money for which his father has had to work his whole life. He is giving no thought even to how his father would feel. In addition, the word "riotous " shows that the younger son is committing another sinful act in which he is living in a wild and uncontrolled style with no care to the deep pain of his father at home. .
When the severe famine comes, the younger son has nothing left because he has spent everything. He is completely alone and without resources. He has to work for a stranger in a foreign land to feed the pigs just to survive. He would long "to be nourished on the nuts that the pig ate, and no one would give to him " (Luke 15). At this point of the story, the younger son is finally experiencing the consequences of his actions with no protection from his father. He also is reduced to working with pigs which is a violation of Jewish law and would bring exclamations of disgust from even the least religious of the audience. He now was completely an outcast from his family and culture. Feeding the pigs is symbolic of the extreme level of desperation and shame that he now gets to experience. Most of the audience would agree that he is finally starting to get what he deserves. .
Another noticeable point is that he does not come back to his father to ask for help right away. Rather, he chooses to stay and work as a pig feeder perhaps to learn the lesson of reality that "no one would give to him " when he is hungry like his father would have done.