No. “Dismal” is not that negative! “The weather was dismal.” (Rainy, cloudy) “His latest TOEFL results were dismal but he’s very motivated and I don’t think language will be a problem”

Are these sentences correct? (1) The behavior he acts to frame his friend is dismal. (2) How dismal the accident was! I couldn’t imagine such a young child being left after his parents both gone! 1) His behavior of framing his friend is/was dismal. 2) How dismal the accident was! I couldn’t imagine such a young child being left with his parents both gone! In the second one, I replaced "after" with "with" because in this case changing the word to "with" gives it the same meaning as "considering". The word "after" just doesn't really work with the grammatical construction of the sentence. If you want to use "after" you would need to change the sentence to be something like, "I couldn't imagine such a young child being left without both his parents after the accident." or "I can't imagine such a young child being left after both his parents died/left."