One of the essential foundations for literary interpretation has been observed by minds both great and limited: when the title includes any item actually described in the text, what you’ve got there is a symbol worth investigating. Fortunately for your topic, the object considered significant enough to become not just a symbol, but the title of the story is all about setting. The biggest obstacle to overcome is deciding what the wallpaper is meant to symbolize.
Again, however, you are in luck precisely because of the topic. This is not just any wallpaper, it is wallpaper inside the home of the protagonist. Better still: it is not wallpaper that is merely yellow, it is wallpaper in which the yellow has become offensive to the senses as a result of age and neglect. Take a second to consider how often in your own life you have ever become aware of the smell of wallpaper. Ever? Not so the narrator:
“But there is something else about that paper - the smell!...It creeps all over the house... Such a peculiar odor, too!..The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell.”
Here is the key aspect of setting your paper should focus on. It is not just the color of the paper that is bothersome, it is the odor. An odor described as “yellow.” The narrator just unwittingly admitted that she is manifests an extremely rare perceptual disorder known as synesthesia in which people “hear” colors or “smell” sounds or “touch” ideas. Such a state of mind capable of that kind of commingling of the senses would undoubtedly be extremely sensitive and subject to expressions of perspective that others might term madness.
As the narrator herself puts it in describing the particular sensations of smelling yellow and on a broader sense metaphorically: “But now I am used to it.”
Your essay will be strengthened by focusing on how people generally tend to overlook or ignore aspects of their setting until something forces them to see it from a new perspective. For the narrator, this perspective is smelling the paper rather than seeing it. It is the “smell of yellow” that brings attention to how long the paper has been neglected and from there, of course, she makes the connection to herself. That this could only have taken place inside her home you have likely already figured out. If not, think about why the symbol could only have been set inside her home.
It is important to remember what the narrator says about how her husband and brother agree on what is best for her and insist upon it, even though she feels otherwise. She is a writer, and they forbid her to work. This illustrates the way men control the circumstances of her life and silence her by not letting her write.
Paying attention to the setting is also important. The woman is in a house in the country, an isolating experience on its own. She has no ability to visit others, host friends, or go to shops or cafes where she would have the ability to take in other perspectives and experience mental stimulation.
The woman thinks that the room she is confined in used to be a nursery. It has bars on the windows that she assumes were put in place to keep the children safe. This is important because it suggests that the men see her as a child who must be protected, even from herself and any "dangerous" ideas she might entertain.
From the room, the woman can look outdoors and see intriguing places that she would like to explore. But her husband has forbidden this, also. She is treated not only as a child, but also as a prisoner.
In an essay that examines the relationship between the narrator's state of mind and her environment, you could organize your paragraphs by focusing on a different aspect of the setting in each: an isolated country house, a nursery with barred windows, and the world that the narrator sees in the yellow wallpaper.
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