OBLIVION 2: THE FIANCÉS

After doing Othello, Oblivion parodied The Fiancés. This novel, written by one Alessandro Manzoni, a contemporary of Verdi's, is considered a flagship of Italian Romanticism and mandatory study book for high-school students. Every Italian teenager knows I Promessi Sposi (that's the original title), and nine out of ten consider it a tedious book (the baroque style and the many digressions recall Hugo's Les Misérables).
Set against the backdrop of rural Lombardy during the Thirty Years' War, the novel is basically the story of two young peasants, Renzo and Lucia (both conveniently orphaned, beautiful and innocent), whose engagement is interrupted by thugs at the service of local squire Don Rodrigo, since he is passionately in love with Lucia. And thus, our hero and heroine are separated, encountering during their travels:
- A nun with a dark past, dark secrets and a darker future (Lucia).
- An innkeeper who acts as deviously as Monsieur Thénardier (Renzo). (NOT APPEARING IN THE PARODY)
- A sadistic and troubled aristocrat, obviously a dead ringer for Edward Rochester minus mad wife in the attic (Lucia).
- Revolutions led by poor young peasants and craftspeople against a corrupt governor (Renzo).
- A mismatched posh husband and wife couple: he's an eccentric scientist, while she's a hypocritical noblewoman who behaves like Madame Thénardier (Lucia). (NOT APPEARING IN THE PARODY)

Finally, all of the cast is reunited at the same hospital, due to a plague epidemic carried by German mercenaries. The bad guys die (they deserved such a fate), while Renzo and Lucia survive to marry and live happily ever after.

And here's Oblivion's rendition of The Fiancés: