"The Death of a Moth" by Virginia Woolf can properly be called a narrative essay. Narrative essays tell a story, but they also have a core theme upon which the entire essay centers. In this case, that point is the death of a moth; Woolf uses this image to explore the idea of life and mortality.

Unlike a descriptive essay, this essay includes a progression of events. Woolf follows the tribulations of a small moth as it struggles and eventually dies. Woolf includes her own narrative voice which describes her observations of the moth's actions. This is interwoven with her musings on what it means to be a human struggling each day to survive and how seemingly insignificant the moth's exertions and death are. Because the story has a clear set of events and a narrative voice, it can be considered a narrative essay.

A descriptive essay would lack this clear progression of events. A descriptive essay would, as its name suggests, contain descriptions of the moth and perhaps describe what it goes through. However, it would lack the story-like quality that is an essential part of narrative essays.