The most notable music in Gone With the Wind is Tara's theme. Every time Scarlett gets back to Tara the music is triumphant, upbeat, and hopeful. Scarlett is almost always struggling when she returns to Tara, but the use of trumpets in Tara's melody reminds the audience of Scarlett's love for Tara and her determination to succeed. Tara's theme does not stay triumphant for long when Scarlett realizes just how much has been lost in the war, but the sense of pride that the melody evokes does not waver. Scarlett is frantic when she first gets home after fleeing Atlanta, but she is still determined to stay and make Tara profitable again. The very last scene best depicts Scarlett's love for Tara through the music because Scarlett this time is devastated; Rhett left her and she has hit bottom, but Tara's theme is very boisterous and expectant in the last scene. This tells the audience that Scarlett will make it because her love for Tara will help her through anything.
The rest of the music throughout the film was very important for moving the action forward and for foreshadowing events. One scene that I thought was very poignant was the battle scene with all of the fallen soldiers. The use of the "Dixie" while showing the dead men, and then transitioning to "Taps" was a very strong use of score music. "Dixie" is understood to represent the South, and "Taps" is very powerful because it's always used at a soldier's funeral so the combined use of these songs made the scene very moving.
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I agree that the Tara theme is important in Gone With the Wind, especially to represent what Scarlett was, what she wanted to be, and what she will always love and find comforting. The music helps create this feeling through its melody and increases the emotional attachment to Tara through its joyful, optimistic sound. I didn't notice at the end how the theme changed to "boisterous and expectant" at the end as Laura did, but find it really interesting that it describes the "unspoken though of a character or the unseen implications of a situation" as Copland would have noticed. It really does help imply, as Laura mentioned, that Scarlett will be okay, even though Rhett has left her, due to the music's encouraging sound. It really helps increase the emotions at the end from that of depression to some hopefulness. Instead of leaving the viewer completely gloomy, it leaves the viewer with some confidence that Scarlett will be fine because she at least has Tara.
The use of melodies traditionally associated with war such as "Dixie" and "Taps" was evident in Gone with the Wind and served to fully incorporate both the southern enthusiasm for the war at its beginning and the devastation throughout. But even the well-known melodies were often distorted to demonstrate the confusing and painful situations.
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