Human connection and healing are anchors that Ahab can not afford to entertain in his monomaniac quest to kill the whale. The flowering of a friendship, forged by madness and understanding, between Ahab and Pip, is destroyed when Ahab goes back on his promise to keep Pip close and excuses him from his Cabin.

For a moment, there was what was beginning to be a father-son-like relationship between Ahab and Pip. Gardiner reminds Ahab of his responsibilities, not just to his crew, but to his family, which he has abandoned by going on this dead-end quest. Ahab perhaps closes himself off after this interaction, where he turned down aiding Gardiner in his quest for his son lost at sea, for the pursuit of Moby Dick. It is telling of how important this new father-son relationship has become to Ahab, enough so that Ahab must realize that following this quest must mean the endangerment of his new son. It is powerful enough that Ahab must abandon Pip, although it hurts him to do so: 

“There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. Like curers like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health.”

 Ahab and Pip have endured an injury to the mind and the soul that has been disregarded by all those on crew as madness, but is better known to you and me as mental illness. No one has been able to understand and reach Ahab, but Pip, who is injured further by this abandonment and stripping of his identity, being shown what it is to love and belong to someone. Pip is such a fragile character, and it hurts me, as it does Ahab, to see him suffer this disillusionment. Pip becomes Ahab’s one weakness because he becomes his cure.