This analytical essay will provide an analysis and interpretation of american writer Eowyn Ivey’s short story “As the Time Draws Near” (2012). The readers are introduced to the main character, Piper, who grew up in Alaska but later moved away. The short story follows her at a time when she has returned to Alaska in order to spread her dead father’s ashes under a particular spruce tree. She has a lot of thoughts about death and she is almost obsessed with it. Death is the focal point and theme in this short story. It raises questions such as what happens when we die? And what is death really? The story tells about our short time on earth and how fear of death can stand in the way of living life fully with all the experiences the current moment offers. 
This essay will focus mainly on setting and the father’s outlook on life. Furthermore this essay will also include an analysis of the symbolism in the short story.

At the beginning the description of the nature in Alaska is a vivid portrayal followed by a number of incidents where people have been killed in or by this nature. Piper’s father is one of these people, he “falls out of the sky.” (p. 1, l. 10)
Her father with the name Red lived his life like it was an adventure. The description of the landscape appears in the same way - like a never-ending adventure. The tundra is a big and open landscape. The mountains, the glaciers and the snow continues into infinity. The same infinity that Piper’s father wanted to experience. The tundra is described when Piper sees it from the airplane:
“as far as she can see in any direction the earth is made of rust-coloured flatlands broken up by odd-shaped, glistening slices of water.” (p. 1, l. 28).
The open landscape with its odd-shaped slices of water is the never-ending adventure. 
After the description of the tundra, “the pilot changes altitude (…) the ground shifts beneath her