Daisy Wicker

Daisy Wicker is a young woman who works at the Bibelot, an antique shop in Amity. She is introduced as a tall, slim girl with long, straight hair, who wears slacks and sandals and no makeup. She is invited by Ellen Brody to a dinner party at the Brody home as a potential companion for Matt Hooper, the visiting oceanographer from Woods Hole. At the party, Daisy engages in a conversation with Martin Brody that reveals her countercultural attitudes and her tendency toward frank, provocative statements. She asks Brody if he feels "alienated" from the people he polices, and she describes her work at the Bibelot by saying, "We sell people their past. It gives them comfort." She also mentions a "G and G" — a dish of gazpacho sprinkled with marijuana — and asks Hooper if he has ever tried one. Her manner and remarks irritate Brody, who later complains to Ellen that Daisy is "a spook" and "just like some of the kids we bust who start smart-mouthing us in the station."

Role in the Personal Conflict

Daisy Wicker becomes central to the personal conflict between Martin Brody and Matt Hooper. After the dinner party, Brody becomes suspicious that Hooper and his wife, Ellen, may be having an affair. On the morning of the third day of the shark hunt, Brody confronts Hooper on the dock, demanding to know where he was on the previous Wednesday afternoon. Hooper, under physical duress from Brody's grip, claims he was "in a motel" with Daisy Wicker. Brody immediately rejects this alibi, revealing that he has learned from Janet Sumner, Vaughan's secretary, that Daisy Wicker is a lesbian. "Daisy Wicker's a goddam lesbian!" Brody shouts. "What were you doing, knitting?" Hooper, struggling to breathe, insists that Daisy agreed to go to a motel with him, saying "she wanted ... that it was time she tried it straight. But then she couldn't go through with it." Brody is not convinced, but the confrontation ends when Quint intervenes, and the three men depart on the Orca. The question of Hooper's whereabouts on that Wednesday — and the truth of his story about Daisy — remains unresolved in the narrative, as Hooper is killed by the shark later that same day. Daisy Wicker thus serves as a key figure in the novel's exploration of jealousy, suspicion, and the breakdown of trust between Brody and Hooper.