Gregory Trask is the definition of pure evil in my book, as far as the human villains go. He's a sadist who hides behind a collar and black suit, enjoys torturing and tormenting poor children, intimidates those he has under his thumb and he has the nerve to call himself a Man of God. When in reality he's anything but. Some may find Trask cartoonish, but I don't...I find him frightening and scary thing is there probably are people like him who suscribe to his deluted and twisted way of thinking in today's world. Not just reverends, but teachers, parents, etc.
His attitude about children being animals who need to be taught be fear is truly sick. He enjoys power and he enjoys exorcising his power in the most despicable and inhumane ways. He wanted an excuse to come down even harder on Jamison and that's why he put the key in there. Even if Jamison hadn't stoled the key and left the room, Trask would have thought of something else to give him an excuse to punish the boy.
Sad part is, Jamison's suffering at the hands of Trask MIGHT have been avoided if Rachel had just come clean with Edward
and Judith. Maybe they wouldn't have believed her anyway but at least it would have shown that she had some backbone and wouldn't allow Trask to intimidate her anymore. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.
